{"id":36,"date":"2016-08-24T12:34:37","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T02:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2017-05-21T16:41:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T06:41:31","slug":"the-difference-between-lay-and-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/journal\/notes\/the-difference-between-lay-and-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"The difference between lay and lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n TLDR: You would lie<\/em> down on a bed. You would lay<\/em> down your sword upon the table.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As one of my pet hates, I thought it was about time I wrote a little piece about these two little words; namely around the idea that they are not interchangeable, despite what many think.<\/p>\n

Lay (verb)\u2014to place something down upon a surface<\/p>\n

\n To see whether the tablecloth fits, I will lay it down across the table.<\/em><\/p>\n

She finished reading the final page, then laid the book down upon her lap.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2019Lay down your weapons and we\u2019ll allow you to leave this castle alive!\u2019<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the above instances, it is the object<\/strong> (tablecloth, book, weapons) that is being placed somewhere (table, lap, down on the ground), meaning the word lay<\/em> must be used, as opposed to lie<\/em>. Think about a bricklayer being someone who lays bricks down and cements them into place. He\u2019s not a brick-lier.<\/p>\n

Lie (verb)\u2014to become horizontal, as on a bed or the ground<\/p>\n

\n Horses can both stand up and lie down to sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I\u2019m in bed, I generally prefer to lie on my left side.<\/em><\/p>\n

Humans generally relax when they\u2019re lying down.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the above examples, the horses and humans are capable of lying down by themselves, so lie<\/em> must be used. This is the main difference between the two words. Lay<\/em> is something that you do to something else\u2014the tablecloth can\u2019t lie down on its own because it\u2019s an inanimate object, so you must lay it down. Lie<\/em> is something that you do in order to become horizontal.<\/p>\n

Where the confusion lies (ha ha) is probably in two main areas. Firstly, lie<\/em> often becomes lay<\/em> in the past tense.<\/p>\n

\n The book lay on the table.<\/em><\/p>\n

After the soccer game, I lay on the floor, completely exhausted.<\/em><\/p>\n

The pieces of the puzzle lay across the carpet.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Secondly, the motion of laying something down can be done to parts of the body or other people (things that are normally capable of lying down independently), as well as the inanimate objects (tablecloth etc).<\/p>\n

\n \u2019Lay down your head and rest, my dear.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

She gently laid her baby down into the stroller.<\/em><\/p>\n

The nurse laid the patient\u2019s arm across his chest.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, before we finish up, it\u2019s worth mentioning that our American friends probably disagree with almost everything I\u2019ve said above, as they often use lay<\/em> interchangeably with lie<\/em>, meaning to become horizontal. While this may have become the norm across the Atlantic, that does not necessarily mean that it is correct. The influence of American culture in other English-speaking countries has caused a great deal of confusion for these two words (as well as many others), so watch out!<\/p>\n

If you use non-US English, it is best to master the differences indicated above. If you are an American English user, well\u2026 I still think it\u2019s beneficial, even if you ignore it!<\/p>\n

Now, I think I need to lay some new sheets on my bed and go have a lie down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not to be confused with fibbing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}