Morning Rant

[oceana]

Let's take a look at some basic, english grammar, shall we?

1) To lie, lied, lied = to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
(for those of you who didn't finish highschool: the first one is the infinitive (lie), the second the simple past (lied), the last the past participle (lied).
The present participle is lying.

That leaves us with the following examples:
He lied about his age.
He had lied to him before.
I know he was lying about his age.

2) To lie, lay, lain = to be or to stay at rest in a horizontal position
Present participle: lying

He lies on the bed.
He lay perfectly still, hoping that the tiger wouldn't eat him.
If he had lain perfectly still, he'd still be alive today.
He is lying on the bed when he sees the tiger approach him.

3) (and here is where it really gets tricky) To lay, laid, laid = to put or set down; to place for rest or sleep;
Present participle: laying

Now I lay me down to sleep. (I'm not even sure if this is correct, but I assume that it would have to be 'me" rather than the reflexive 'myself' because 'lay' stands necessarily with an object, so the reference to the subject isn't really reflective. But who knows?)
I laid the money on the table and left.
He has laid the money on the table.

Notice how this is the act of putting is something down. The object that is placed somewhere is passive in your sentence. You can lay yourself down but you canNOT order someone to "Lay down on the bed!"
So the more dominant of you (generic you, meaning writers in general, not anyone specific on my flist) should write
"Lie down on the bed, bitch!"
and
"Lay her down on the bed, slave!"

And if you absolutely have to include spanking (I don't mind spanking from time to time), please, please , don't write "Whack - whack - whack", especially not in direct speech, because it makes me think that the character is saying "Whack - whack - whack!". Or - to put it in spanking terms -it hurts my brain, not my bottom.


Disclaimer:
As you all know, I'm not a native speaker. I make my fair share of mistakes. Let's not even mention the typos. The correct use of the comma in the english language will forever remain a mystery to me, but I try my best. The whole lie, lay, lie etc. thing is something I learned in highschool (well, not the spanking thing, obviously.) It is really not that hard to remember and there are thousands of websites and essays dedicated to this little problem. So if you know that you tend to use it incorrectly, look it up. Ask. Get a beta.


Next we learn why words like "definately" and "competant" do not exist, and why you maybe should have take those latin classes after all.

This was your morning rant, brought to you be the letter 'B' and oceana_, as a shameless excuse to use the pretty Skinner icon that I snatched from literati.