While I'm at it, I've noticed time and time again Americans using "lay" instead of "lie".
e.g. "I was laying on the bed"
This suggests he was dropping an egg on the bed.
"Lay" is the imperfect of "Lie", and "Lying" is the participle
e.g. "I was lying on the bed", "I lay on the bed".
But transitively you lay, as in:
"I'm going to lay my vacation clothes on the bed", and the imperfect/pp are "laid" and "laying"
e.g. "the hen laid an egg" and "I was laying a carpet"
Of course, there is the other American use of to lay, which suggests that in the first sentence/example, the speaker wasn't alone :-)
- Whoever said that women are the weaker sex never tried to wrest the bedclothes off one in the middle of the night
- Worry is the interest you pay, in advance, for a loan that you may never need to take out.
