In my previous post on falling off the step and breaking my foot, I was about to write “as I laid on the ground” but then I recalled some English class discussion about the correct usage of lie vs. lay. I then changed it to read “as I lay on the ground” but it didn’t sound right. So I did the Google thing for lie vs. lay and found this from Grammar Girl (click here.)
However, despite reading what she had to say, I was still unsure about it and said to hell with it. My foot was hurting and I was not in the mood to pursue grammatical correctness at the time, so I finessed it all by writing “as I was sprawled out on the ground.” Guess that too violated some grammatical code about using two words where one would do.
But back to the correct usage of lie and lay. Turns out that my lack of knowledge about it put me in some pretty good company as both Clapton and Dylan, according to Grammar Girl, didn’t know the correct usage either:
As for the Lay Down Sally stuff, I always thought that Clapton knew exactly what he was writing about since it reminded me of something I ran into years ago:
Do chickens come from people? No, chickens come from eggs. Are eggs born? No, eggs are laid. Are people laid? Some are, others are chicken.
As for a song today obviously I should go with Lay Down Sally, but you know what? Even though Clapton is God, Lay Down Sally proved that even God produced some schlock every once in a while. I never changed the channel when it played on the radio, but I never turned up the volume for it either. IMHO there are lots of other, better Sally songs. Here’s a good take on Wilson Pickett’s classic done by and from the movie The Commitments that I will lay on you instead. (I think I said that right.)