lie/lay alternation - not US

[Jonathan Lighter]

Also it's "poetry."

Maybe they're "lying" in more ways than one.

Ambiguous puns are big in whippersnapper literary thinking.  I used to read
lots.

Shakespeare did it better in Sonnet 138.

JL



On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 12:51 AM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: lie/lay alternation - not US
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Excellent! I love the second explanation. It works in parallel both for
> irrealis and rhyming.
>
> BB
>
> On Oct 4, 2011, at 9:09 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> >
> > Sheer speculation:  Maybe "lay with", with human object, is too close to
> "lay" (tr.), so "lie" in line 3 is a quasi-euphemism.  I know, doesn't
> explain why "lie" isn't used throughout.  Another perhaps more likely
> possibility:  The "if" in lines 1,2 induces an irrealis tense shift, where
> "lay" is past of "lie" (cf. "If I were to lie with you").  In this case,
> there'd be no appreciable difference between the below quatrain and e.g.
> >
> > If I sat here
> > If I just sat here
> > Would you sit with me
> > And just forget the world?
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
> > On Oct 4, 2011, at 11:09 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> >
> >> 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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