It only does what you tell it to douche...
Showing posts with label grammar rocks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grammar rocks. Show all posts
08 April 2009
04 February 2009
Is it laying, or is it lying?
Many years ago, I used to be a tutor at my college's writing center. I noticed there were a few grammatical issues that consistently confused writers. The first was the use of active or passive voice. The second was the proper placement of commas and apostrophes. The third was the proper use of the words lay and lie.
I realized today that I no longer remember when it's appropriate to use forms of to lay and to lie, so here it is:
Lie / Lay / Lying / Laying (from http://www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com/articles/article/992333/8992.htm)
Lie is an intransitive verb (one that does not take an object), meaning "to recline." Its principal parts are lie (base form), lay (past tense), lain (past participal), and lying (present participle).
[Lie meaning "to tell an untruth" uses lied for both the past tense and past participle, with lying as the present participle.]
Lay is a transitive verb (one that takes an object), meaning "to put" or "to place." Its principal parts are lay (base form), laid (past tense), laid (past participle), and laying (present participle).
The two words have different meanings and are not interchangeable. Although lay also serves as the past tense of lie (to recline) – as in, "He lay down for a nap an hour ago" – lay (or laying) may not otherwise be used to denote reclining. It is not correct to say or write, "I will lay down for nap" or "He is laying down for a nap." The misuse of lay or laying in the sense of "to recline" (which requires lie or lying) is the most common error involving the confusion of these two words.
> Once you lay (put or place) a book on the desk, it is lying (reclining, resting) there, not laying there.
> When you go to Bermuda for your vacation, you spend your time lying (not laying) on the beach (unless, of course, you are engaged in sexual activity and are, in the vernacular, laying someone on the beach).
> You lie down on the sofa to watch TV and spend the entire evening lying there; you do not lay down on the sofa to watch TV and spend the entire evening laying there.
>If you see something lying on the ground, it is just resting there; if you see something laying on the ground, it must be doing something else, such as laying eggs.
I realized today that I no longer remember when it's appropriate to use forms of to lay and to lie, so here it is:
Lie / Lay / Lying / Laying (from http://www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com/articles/article/992333/8992.htm)
Lie is an intransitive verb (one that does not take an object), meaning "to recline." Its principal parts are lie (base form), lay (past tense), lain (past participal), and lying (present participle).
[Lie meaning "to tell an untruth" uses lied for both the past tense and past participle, with lying as the present participle.]
Lay is a transitive verb (one that takes an object), meaning "to put" or "to place." Its principal parts are lay (base form), laid (past tense), laid (past participle), and laying (present participle).
The two words have different meanings and are not interchangeable. Although lay also serves as the past tense of lie (to recline) – as in, "He lay down for a nap an hour ago" – lay (or laying) may not otherwise be used to denote reclining. It is not correct to say or write, "I will lay down for nap" or "He is laying down for a nap." The misuse of lay or laying in the sense of "to recline" (which requires lie or lying) is the most common error involving the confusion of these two words.
> Once you lay (put or place) a book on the desk, it is lying (reclining, resting) there, not laying there.
> When you go to Bermuda for your vacation, you spend your time lying (not laying) on the beach (unless, of course, you are engaged in sexual activity and are, in the vernacular, laying someone on the beach).
> You lie down on the sofa to watch TV and spend the entire evening lying there; you do not lay down on the sofa to watch TV and spend the entire evening laying there.
>If you see something lying on the ground, it is just resting there; if you see something laying on the ground, it must be doing something else, such as laying eggs.
15 January 2009
You know?
In Ben McGrath's Eliza Dolittle column:
In 2001, shortly after being sworn into the Senate, Hillary Clinton gave a press conference to address questions related to her husband’s Presidential pardons. The Times observed that she used the word “disappointed” ten times, in reference to her brother, Hugh Rodham, who had accepted four hundred thousand dollars to lobby on behalf of a couple of criminals. (One was pardoned, and the other got out of jail early.)
Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at Berkeley...was struck by the recurrence of something else: the phrase “you know,” which in her line of work is recognized as a “discourse marker” or a “pragmatic particle.” She...was moved to write an essay, “Now You Know About Hillary Rodham Clinton,” in which she speculated that even “very sophisticated and articulate public persons” might repeat the phrase excessively when feeling vulnerable.
Clinton’s “you know” count came to nineteen. Her possible senatorial replacement, Caroline Kennedy...met with a couple of Times reporters recently and said “you know” a hundred and thirty-eight times. Speaking to the News, and on NY1, she broke two hundred.
The effect...was...to recall what some commentators refer to as the “Roger Mudd moment”—a reference to the CBS correspondent who flummoxed Caroline’s uncle, Ted Kennedy, in 1979, with questions about his desire to run for President:
Ted: “Well, it’s—on what—on, you know, you have to come to grips with the different issues that we’re facing. I mean, we can—we’d have to deal with each of the various questions that we’re talking about.”
Caroline, on Ted: “I mean, he loves the Senate. It’s been, you know, the most, you know, rewarding life for him, you know. I’m sure he would love it to feel like somebody that he cared about had that same kind of opportunity.”
The Mudd parallel highlighted the strange tension in Kennedy’s nascent candidacy. On the one hand, her lack of polish, or media training, suggests an Everywoman appeal—the mother of three with no Washington experience, like a Sarah Palin for Democrats—while at the same time undermining the Kennedy mystique and serving as a reminder of the Bush lesson that dynasties can devolve (and not just into mangled English).
In 2001, shortly after being sworn into the Senate, Hillary Clinton gave a press conference to address questions related to her husband’s Presidential pardons. The Times observed that she used the word “disappointed” ten times, in reference to her brother, Hugh Rodham, who had accepted four hundred thousand dollars to lobby on behalf of a couple of criminals. (One was pardoned, and the other got out of jail early.)
Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at Berkeley...was struck by the recurrence of something else: the phrase “you know,” which in her line of work is recognized as a “discourse marker” or a “pragmatic particle.” She...was moved to write an essay, “Now You Know About Hillary Rodham Clinton,” in which she speculated that even “very sophisticated and articulate public persons” might repeat the phrase excessively when feeling vulnerable.
Clinton’s “you know” count came to nineteen. Her possible senatorial replacement, Caroline Kennedy...met with a couple of Times reporters recently and said “you know” a hundred and thirty-eight times. Speaking to the News, and on NY1, she broke two hundred.
The effect...was...to recall what some commentators refer to as the “Roger Mudd moment”—a reference to the CBS correspondent who flummoxed Caroline’s uncle, Ted Kennedy, in 1979, with questions about his desire to run for President:
Ted: “Well, it’s—on what—on, you know, you have to come to grips with the different issues that we’re facing. I mean, we can—we’d have to deal with each of the various questions that we’re talking about.”
Caroline, on Ted: “I mean, he loves the Senate. It’s been, you know, the most, you know, rewarding life for him, you know. I’m sure he would love it to feel like somebody that he cared about had that same kind of opportunity.”
The Mudd parallel highlighted the strange tension in Kennedy’s nascent candidacy. On the one hand, her lack of polish, or media training, suggests an Everywoman appeal—the mother of three with no Washington experience, like a Sarah Palin for Democrats—while at the same time undermining the Kennedy mystique and serving as a reminder of the Bush lesson that dynasties can devolve (and not just into mangled English).
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