The subject is not mendacity
but “getting—or putting--horizontal.” The distinction is confusing in English,
because the past tense of one verb is the present tense of the other. What a
pickle!
“I think I’ll lie down for a
while.” [Correct]
“Just lay the book over there
on the table.” [Correct]
Two points need to be made
about the simple sentences above. First, it isn’t a matter of humans versus the
whole rest of the world (books and hens and such) but a matter of intransitive versus transitive verbs. (I heard
those groans!) Unless there’s an object, you want the intransitive verb, in
this case, to
lie. That takes us to the second
point, which is that dogs, when relaxing in front of the fire, are lying there, not laying, and the correct wording of the
training command is “Lie down,” not “Lay down.” When, on the other hand,
there’s an object following the verb, an egg or a book or whatever, you want
the transitive verb, the one that can carry or transport its object.
It wouldn’t be so bad if that
were the end of the story—but then along comes the pesky past tense.
“I lay down to rest and fell
asleep for an hour.” [Correct}
“He laid the book carefully
on the table, as if it were an egg.” [Correct: The addition of the egg was just
to see if you were paying attention.]
Suddenly the spelling and
sound of lay is correct for a human but only because it is the
past tense of to
lie, not to lay, the past tense of the latter being laid! We could take lie and lay into deeper waters, but why bother? Something tells
me the distinction may vanish in my own lifetime.
Often, quite honestly, I
almost wish I didn’t know the rules for using these verbs correctly, because
the knowledge makes it so annoying to hear the incorrect usage. Embarrass my
fellow human beings with public correction, I will not.
Okay, what about “Now I lay
me down to sleep,” some of you are asking. Could it be that the confusion in
English arises from this very source, the childhood prayer? It’s a tricky
question, but note that ‘me’ in there. The speaker of this sentence takes
himself or herself not only as subject (“I”) but also as object (“me”).
Strictly speaking, it would be more proper to use a reflexive pronoun, i.e., “I
lay myself down to sleep,” but of course the rhythm would then be entirely
lost. Poetic license! Whether for rhythm or for rhyme, verse and song often
depart from strict grammar, and there it’s just fine.
