![]() Decide for yourself what is best for you." "Many people use lay for lie, but certain others will judge you uncultured if you do. So what should you do? The best advice seems to be Bolinger's. On the other hand, evidence also shows no retreat of intransitive lay in oral use. And by far the largest part of our printed evidence follows the schoolbook rules. Bolinger observes sensibly that if you have invested some effort in learning the distinction, you will not want to admit that you have wasted your time. "If lay 'lie' is on the rise socially, however, it is likely to be a slow rise, as indignant letters to the editor attest. Flesch even goes so far as to recommend using lay for lie if it comes naturally to you. For instance, several commentators, such as Evans 1957, Follett 1966, and Flesch 1983, are perfectly willing to give the distinction up Bolinger 1980 thinks it is already a lost cause not worth defending Coperud 1970, 1980 judges the consensus of his experts to be that at least some uses of lay for lie are verging on the standard. "Notwithstanding the belief of some that social judgments can be solidly based on language use, the lay-lie shibboleth may be changing its status. "If the grammarians and the schoolmasters and the schoolmarms and the usage writers have succeeded in largely establishing the transitive-intransitive distinction between lay and lie in standard discursive prose, they have not done so well in speech. (William Cobbett, A Grammar of the English Language in a Series of Letters, 1818) Thus: 'I lay my hat on the table today, but, yesterday, I laid it on the shelf.'" Thus: 'Dick lies on a bed now, but some time ago, he lay on the floor.' This Verb is often confounded with the Verb to lay, which is an active Verb, and which becomes, in its past time, laid. This last-mentioned Verb, to lie, becomes, in the past time, lay. "I will here give you a specimen of the errors which are sometimes committed by those who do not understand Grammar. (Simon Heffer, "Style Notes 28: February 12, 2010." The Daily Telegraph) Lay is a transitive verb (I lay down a case of claret every month she laid the table), lie an intransitive one (he lies over there she lay in bed until noon).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |