With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week.


Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote 'The Hokey Pokey' died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started...


Yeah, its OK to laugh

lmao

<3 lisa.

my two kids still at home
wish i would "get over"
this joke....

i just keep busting out
laughing every time i think of it!!

very very funny

Quote from: lisagurl on July 27, 2008, 08:52:21 PM
Yeah, its OK to laugh

Ok, but don't you mean lie still? Small semantic difference but still grammatically incorrect.

My thought was that the family had expectations but the unstiff had another. Did I leave off the "?"

But grammar is a moving object unless you are in France. English is not what I write, it is more of a Brooklynese. Yes, I also make up words and how to spell them.

ohh my

yes lisa very funny im trying to hold in the s->-bleeped-<-s at work.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 29, 2008, 08:58:33 AM
But grammar is a moving object unless you are in France. English is not what I write, it is more of a Brooklynese. Yes, I also make up words and how to spell them.

That may be but it still requires common understanding to communicate effectively so everyone agrees on the usage and definitions. In short, you can't lay down, you lie down. You can't tell someone to lay down, you tell them to lie down. You can't tell someone to lay still, you tell them to lie still. The word lay means to put some thing down, other than a person. There is a pop song out not with the same mistake.

I know, picky, picky, and more picky, but go through graduate school and you will learn to write and edit, otherwise your thesis will bleed more red than you can imagine.

Yes, it's all said with a smile and a wink too.

It is not a command or explanation. It is a question. So I left off the punctuation something very common in headlines.

Quotebut go through graduate school

I have about 12 years of post graduate work but not the degree. I never wanted to write papers. I did determine funding for PHD's projects based on the benefit to society not on grammar. Some place in the back of my mind I feel that the degree is a compromise of my personal spirit as a member of a club which has a limited paradigm. You have to have the judgment and self confidence to to determine when a book or written word does not agree with where you want life to go. I personally think English has a limited life due to the flux of subjectivity it promotes.   

I have about 12 years of post graduate work but not the degree. I never wanted to write papers.

That's kind of like saying "I was an Olympic swimmer, I just never went close to the pool."  The research and papers are the deal, the classes are just a way to mark time.

Lisagurl, i have always loved Borg humor.   

 

Quote from: tekla on July 29, 2008, 12:11:01 PM
I have about 12 years of post graduate work but not the degree. I never wanted to write papers.

That's kind of like saying "I was an Olympic swimmer, I just never went close to the pool."  The research and papers are the deal, the classes are just a way to mark time.

Perhaps, but I got paid to attend. It is the journey not the destination. I did gain knowledge, as I did not want to do research. I enjoyed the politics of shaping the future, except when they got to the point of compromising my values.

Quote from: lisagurl on July 29, 2008, 12:06:10 PM
It is not a command or explanation. It is a question. So I left off the punctuation something very common in headlines.

The punctuation is irrelevalent in the use of the word. A question would be, "Will you please lie still?", and not, "Will you please lay still?" It's the use of the word appropriate for its definition.

And I'm still smiling and winking. I totally understand the common use of this word today. There is a song in the top forty with this mistake as a main line in the song. And while it sounds better (lay instead of lie), it's still incorrect, and to me, not worthy of a good songwriter, but then Eric Clapton also misused it in "Lay Down Sally."

It is not talking to the stiff. It is the question in the mind of the family. Lay still? Must I be dead also? Because you have learned about a particular misuse of a word you are blinded to other uses. There are always exceptions. Welcome to English land.

Quote from: SusanK on July 29, 2008, 09:32:15 AM

Quote from: lisagurl on July 29, 2008, 08:58:33 AM
But grammar is a moving object unless you are in France. English is not what I write, it is more of a Brooklynese. Yes, I also make up words and how to spell them.

That may be but it still requires common understanding to communicate effectively so everyone agrees on the usage and definitions. In short, you can't lay down, you lie down. You can't tell someone to lay down, you tell them to lie down. You can't tell someone to lay still, you tell them to lie still. The word lay means to put some thing down, other than a person. There is a pop song out not with the same mistake.

I know, picky, picky, and more picky, but go through graduate school and you will learn to write and edit, otherwise your thesis will bleed more red than you can imagine.

Yes, it's all said with a smile and a wink too.

Thank you...  It's funny, this is an argument my sister I an I have periodically.  She's all OED type literal, but she often manages to miss, or otherwise utterly ignore, what the common usage and "accepted" understandings are.  Tends to make for some frustrating conversations to say the least.  Ah yes, graduate work, I remember those days (she say's with a visible twitching) fondly...  "Good times, good times..."

Having lived and worked in NY and Brooklyn, I'm quite familiar with the dialect...  Also good times...

Sam

Posted on: July 30, 2008, 00:13:22

---

Quote from: lisagurl on July 29, 2008, 08:40:11 PM
Welcome to English land.

Much better "English Land" than "Man Land" any day of the week. 

"Man Land???" she says with a look of disbelief "What?!?!  Have you got an amusement park in your pants?"  That's right out of "Home Improvement" with Tim Taylor and Patricia Richardson...

I loved that show...  ...so of course they killed that one too!

Sam

Quote from: lisagurl on July 29, 2008, 08:40:11 PM
There are always exceptions. Welcome to English land.

I've lived in English land a long time, and have learned to write the hard way, which includes producing a theseis and writing and editing published reports and articles. I keep the American OED by my desk. I suggest you look up the word in the dictionary, and while it may be common for some to misuse lay, as you have, it still doesn't make it right or proper English, just used, and badly at that. By all means continue to use as you want, it only shows more about yourself.

Good luck to ya'll.

OK, can we please call off the "grammar"-shots in this thread?

The consistent appeals to authority and so-forth in this thread simply "show" the fact that we can disagree about most anything and do. For godssakes!! It's a joke on a BB!! And it's a hilarious joke.


Is the corpse a "something else" or is it not "something else?" An "object" or a "being?" Does it matter?

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000233.htm

QuoteLay means "to place something down." It is something you do to something else. It is a transitive verb.

Incorrect: Lie the book on the table.
Correct: Lay the book on the table.
(It is being done to something else.)

Lie means "to recline" or "be placed." It does not act on anything or anyone else. It is an intransitive verb.

Incorrect: Lay down on the couch.
Correct: Lie down on the couch.
(It is not being done to anything else.)

Lisagurl is a Borg. and i greatly appreciate her for that.

i think we should not bug her about Lay and Lie, ffs.

as if none of the rest of us ever made a single error, hell.

-Ell


--o--


"But lie and lay seem to give people more difficulty than do all the other irregular verbs combined. That's probably because the past tense form of lie is lay and thus indistinguishable from lay in the present tense except in usage. (Sit and set, probably the irregular verbs that give people the most trouble next to lie and lay, for example, have no parts in common. It's sit, sat and sat but set, set, set.)

     The principal parts (most-common verb forms) of lie are:

lie (present,) lay (past) and lain (past participle).

     The principal parts of lay are:

lay (present), laid (past) and laid (past participle).

     As an aid in choosing the correct verb forms, remember that lie means to recline, whereas lay means to put something down.

     • Lie means that the actor (subject) is doing something to himself or herself. It's what grammarians call a complete verb. When accompanied by subjects, complete verbs tell the whole story.
     • Lay, on the other hand, means that the subject is acting on something or someone else; therefore, it requires a complement to make sense. Thus lay always takes a direct object. Lie never does." 
-- from http://web.ku.edu/~edit/lie.html

Quote from: SusanK on July 30, 2008, 10:36:37 AMI've lived in English land a long time, and have learned to write the hard way, which includes producing a theseis and writing and editing published reports and articles. I keep the American OED by my desk. I suggest you look up the word in the dictionary, and while it may be common for some to misuse lay, as you have, it still doesn't make it right or proper English, just used, and badly at that. By all means continue to use as you want, it only shows more about yourself.

Good luck to ya'll.

This whole thing is a very silly argument. Dictionaries, OED's, ect do NOT decide proper or improper use of a word. People decide how words are used then dictionary writers record the state of the language at the time of writing. Professors, businesses, ect may require certain standards for papers submitted to them which makes certain usages proper or improper for that context. But no such authority exists in casual context. The only test that determines proper or improper english in regular usage is "does the language used allow the the recipient to correctly understand the message being sent?" OED correct english that the recipient does not understand is still improper english and OED incorrect english that the recipient understands is still proper english. English is a means to the end of communication, not an end to itself.

Quote from: Lisbeff's Ellie on July 30, 2008, 12:24:36 PM
     • Lie means that the actor (subject) is doing something to himself or herself. It's what grammarians call a complete verb. When accompanied by subjects, complete verbs tell the whole story.
     • Lay, on the other hand, means that the subject is acting on something or someone else; therefore, it requires a complement to make sense. Thus lay always takes a direct object. Lie never does." 

Except, of course, when lay is used in a reflexive sense, where the direct object is oneself.  As in, "Now I lay me down to sleep."