One of the biggest struggles for me is lie vs. lay. I have
mixed this up so much it’s ridiculous. I think it is so hard because you have
to remember which one is which to begin with, and then you have to swap one to
the other in the past tense. It’s a mess.
But I thought of a clever way to remember it and now I will
never forget. The hard part is which one starts which way. So here it is:
I love naps.
I looooove naps.
I could nap all day.
It would be a LIE to say I didn’t love naps.
To LIE is to crawl into bed and take a blissful nap. LIE is
the position you are in when you are napping.
Now all you have to remember is that the other one, LAY, is
for direct objects.
Like LAYS chips.
I LAY this bag of chips down on the counter,
and I LIE down and take a nap.
Now in the past tense, remember that lie changes to lay. The
other one we know. I laid the chips on the counter.
The editing mistake I found this week was someone on my
class discussion for another class wrote “personnel” instead of “personal.”
This picture is what I think of to help me remember the affect vs effect rule.
Thanks for the tip! The way I remember lie vs. lay is this: use "lay" when there is a direct object (for example, the book is the direct object in the sentence "I lay the book on the table.") and use "lie" when there is not a direct object (for example, there isn't a direct object in the sentence "You lie on the sofa.")
ReplyDeleteBoth pictures are helpful and useful into remembering the correct word. Thanks!!
ReplyDelete