verbs

["Wittel, Teresa J." <WITTTJ -at- NCSLINK -dot- COM>]

Delete if verbs bore you....

While I've quite gotten over the misuse of the English language - since
I'm a frequent contributor - hmmm..... I would just like to point out
that the lie/lay confusion is similar to the display/appear phenomenom.
Apparently, there is a lot of confusion about how these verbs are used.

Lay and display are transitive verbs and require an object to act upon.
(The system displays the red screen./Lay the book down.)  Lie and appear
are intransitive and do not have an object. (The red screen appears./The
dog lies down.)  You may remember this from earlier posts.

Do NOT say, "The red screen displays." or "The dog lays down."  (You can
say that the dog lay down - see next paragrpah.) In fact, if you can
replace the word "display" in a given sentence with "becomes visible" -
you are using the wrong verb.  Likewise, if you can replace the verb
"lay" with "set" and it still makes sense, you are probably using the
right verb. (Exceptions exist, of course. Still, it usually works for
me.)  If you can use the verb "sit", you probably can use the verb "lie"
in its place.

And remember folks, past tense of "lie" is not "laid" or "lied" (unless
you told a fib) - it is "lay".  Who knows why?

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