Grammar Police: Lay and Lie

Knowing when to use lay and when to use lie is tricky. I mess it up myself from time to time, and over half of all writers do as well, if I was going to guess on statistics. Here’s a quick guide:

The Grammar Police will not lie down. Image: sxc.hu

You lay an object. So, the following sentences are correct:

• Lay the book on the table.
• The girl will lay her clothes on the bed.
• I want to lay this blanket on the chair.

You lie if you’re talking about yourself…or another thing (like a pet) is doing it to itself. So, the following sentences are correct:

• The child will lie down in the afternoon.
• The cat likes to lie on the window sill.
• Lie on the bed if you’re tired.

Think of lay and lie as the words set and sit. If you could use set in the sentence, you should use lay, and if you could use sit in the sentence, you should use lie. I remember that because sit and lie both have the letter i.

The tricky part comes with changing the tense of a word, because lay is also the past tense of lie. Stupid English, haha. So, saying “Yesterday, the boy lay on the bed.” would be correct. Confusing, huh?

My best advice is to make your sentence present tense, figure out whether to use lay or lie and go from there. Any questions? Just ask!

You can see other Grammar Police posts by heading to this page.