Learning "Lay" and "Lie"

by Gerald Grow, Ph.D.

Division of Journalism

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee FL 32307

 

available at http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow

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Step 2: "Lay," "lie" and verbs that take an object

The most reliable way to distinguish "lay" from "lie" is this: "Lay" takes an object. "Lie" does not take an object. To Take an Object What does it mean for a verb to"take an object?" In English, some verbs take an object, some do not, and some can be used with an object or without an object. An object is something the verb acts upon: "He dropped his spoon." Some verbs that take an object are: hit -- The boy hit the ball. catch -- He caught the kitten. lay -- She laid the book on the table. Some verbs that do not ake an object are: sleep -- He sleeps on the sofa. ("On the sofa" tells where, not what he sleeps.) arrive -- We arrived yesterday. ("Yesterday" is when, not what, we arrived.) lie -- He plans to lie on the grass all afternoon. ("On the grass" is where, not what, he plans to lie.") Does this Verb Take an Object? The first way to distinguish "lay" and "lie" is to ask, "Does this verb take an object?" -- meaning, does it act upon something? Remember this distinction: If you "lay the book on the table," then "book" is the object of your action, "lay." What do you lay? The book. But if you lie "on the grass," that does not make "grass" the object of "lie." You do not "lie the grass," you "lie," and "on the grass" is where you lie. What do you lie? Well, nothing. "You" lie. To determine whether a verb takes an object, ask "what?" after the verb, and see if there is a "what." Transitive and Intransitive Verbs that take an object are called "transitive." Verbs that do not take an object are called "intransitive." (Some verbs can take an object or not, depending on how they are used, but that does not apply to lie and lay.) Transitive To help you remember: The word "transitive" is related to "transition," "trans-Atlantic," "transfer." In a transitive verb, some action is transferred from verb to object: "The boy hit the ball." Intransitive In an intransitive verb, there is no object: "The ship sank." "The ship sank in the channel." ("Channel" is where, not what, the ship sank.) But compare this transitive verb: "The submarine sank the ship." "Ship" is the object of "sank." It tells what the submarine sank. "Sink," then, is one of the verbs that can be either transitive or intransitive -- depending on how it is used. Practice with verbs for a moment, making only this distinction: Does this verb take an object or not?

"Lay" takes an object, "lie" does not

The Key to Everything So Far The distinction between "transitive" and "intransitive" helps you learn to distinguish "lay" from "lie." "Lay" always takes an object: "I lay the book on the table." "Lie" never takes an object: "I think I'll lie on the bed." If you learn to apply this one fact, you will use "lay" and "lie" correctly in nearly every situation--especially when you put it together with the other material in this lesson. Click here for examples of how "lay" always takes an object, in both active and passive sentences. (To keep things simple, all these examples use the verb "laid.") Does the Lay/Lie Verb Take an Object? Now practice distinguishing between lay and lie solely on the basis of whether the verb takes an object. To keep things simple, these first practice questions deal only with the present tense: Lie: I lie (down), you lie, he (she or iit) lies, we lie, you lie, they lie. Lay: I lay (something down), you lay, he (she or it) lays, we lay, you lay, they lay. Click here for the basic practice questions (present tense only) on whether the verb, lay or lie, takes an object. More practice focused on whether the verb, lay or lie, takes an object. For further drill, here's a matching exercise on lie and lay in the present tense (Lay and the Beach).

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