lay me down WAS Re: " Olive, the other reindeer"

[Wilson Gray]

When I first heard this, I didn't have sufficient command of speech to
have developed any expectations about it. That [nauwaileimi] should be
as meaningless as Shadrach, Meshach, or Abindago (as I, as a child,
heard the last) to a child of toddler's age or younger is not
something that I find difficult to understand.

-Wilson

On 8/4/07, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      lay me down WAS Re: " Olive, the other reindeer"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm not quite sure what the problem is (if there is one) with "lay me
> down." Is it simply that "lay myself down" is expected? (I certainly
> wouldn't expect "lie myself down.") Its use is hardly isolated to
> that baleful prayer. Among other places, it appears in "Grantchester
> Meadows" on Pink Floyd's album _Ummagumma_ (yes, in the present
> tense, just as in the prayer). It sounds a little precious or archaic
> but not wrong to me...
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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