(Untitled)

[pearbean]

TO LIE - "be prostrate; be in a horizontal position"
as in "I lie down in bed every night".
"I LAY down in bed and stared at the ceiling."
"I AM LYING down at the moment."/ "He WAS LYING down when the phone rang."
"Good dog! Go and LIE down."

TO LAY - "to put in a horizontal position"
as in "Every evening I lay out the clothes I am going to wear

Comments

[laura_holt_pi]

The confusion of lay and lie makes me want to beat people with whips.

Other annoyances are people saying "momentarily" when they mean "in a moment" and saying "I could care less" when they mean "I couldn't" and generally anything that messes up this wonderful language. I am a pedant and proud of it.

[pearbean]

Oh my goodness yes to all of those things!
The other one that really gets me is the use of "sat" when "sitting" is meant. Grr. :D

[bluwacky]

My current pet peeve? The word "addicting".

Things are addictive, not addicting. Would you say "Opinions on the merits of Starsky and Hutch are divising"? NO, PEOPLE, BECAUSE NOT EVERY ADJECTIVE HAS THE SAME ENDING, BECAUSE LANGUAGE IS COMPLICATED.

Grrrrrrr. GRRRRRRRR. Every time I see the word I want to throw things.

I have no problem with English evolving either - otherwise I wouldn't be able to use "pants" as an adjective, and the world would be that much poorer as a result. But there is NO POINT to using "addicting" unless you're a fool.

(this is the point where someone tells me that addicting is perfectly legitimate US English or something like that...)

[pearbean]

YES.
Laying seems to be the default in everything I read now. The other day I nearly commented on a fic that had got "poring" right as in "to pore over books" because (as I ranted some time ago) I never see much else but "pouring" these days. Perhaps I should have done.
Were are the vigilante savers of grammar when you need them?