lie/lay alternation - not US

Benjamin Barrett gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM
Wed Oct 5 03:09:40 UTC 2011


In the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol, the words lay and lie appear as intransitive verbs.

One stanza has both and is repeated four times (http://www.elyrics.net/read/s/snow-patrol-lyrics/chasing-cars-lyrics.html):

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world?

The enunciation is clear in each instance. Although it's possible that "lie" means "tell a lie," it looks like euphonic alternation to me.

The song was written by Gary Lightbody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Lightbody), who was born in Northern Ireland and went to university in Scotland.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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