• Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I don’t know if there is a rule. This one might just be an example of English being needlessly confusing.

        • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          No, I think I’ve got a good handle on that. Studying German and learning Akkusativ vs Dativ really helped.

          I think the challenge here involves a few things:

          • It’s hard to remember irregular verbs unless they’re super common.
          • The vowel shifts on the right side: present-tense Lie and Lying vs past Lay and Lain.
          • Some of the forms on the right are very similar sounding to ones on the left, plus Lay is confusingly used in two rather different situations.
    • atro_city@fedia.io
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      6 months ago

      You need to lie down in order to get laid.

      Explains the difference between lie and lay (hopefully).

    • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You mean like how it does that at the top of the page?

      If you’re talking about an object it’s the left side. If you’re talking about people in rest it’s the right.

      • jet@hackertalks.com
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        6 months ago

        past tense lay, past participle lain…

        can you use these in a sentence for me?

        • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          After King Arhur had lain his sword down, he lay in the tall grass, resting.

          • jet@hackertalks.com
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            6 months ago

            i see my problem, i thought this infographic was talking about lie as in to deceive. I didn’t see the small definition at the top of the sheet.

            Thank you for the example, now everything is clear.

          • Paraneoptera
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            6 months ago

            It should be “after King Arthur had laid his sword down, he lay in the tall grass, resting” since “lain” is the intransitive participial form and “laid” is the transitive participial form. If he’s doing it to a sword he needs the transitive.

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    This may be beyond most people on the internet. We’re still dealing with

    • ‘literally’ is not ‘figuratively’
    • ‘mail’ (and thus ‘e-mail’) , like ‘traffic’, gets no S on the noun; ever.
    • ‘that’ vs ‘whom’
    • ‘any way’ vs ‘anyway’ and others like ‘startup’ vs ‘start up’ (which are as different as “What’s up, Chuck?” vs “What’s upchuck?”)
    • comma placement, for that matter; because “What’s up, Chuck?” is not the same as “What’s up Chuck?”
    • the comma is not a period, nor a semi-colon, nor a colon.
    • the semi-colon is near the ‘L’ key

    … and other easy stuff. I think the reluctance to keep kids back a grade has led to graduates like my niece who cannot make change from a dollar and can’t spell the ‘first-1000’ words on her own.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      … literally is an intensifier. It’s been used as such for 300 years. Making the argument that it should only be used literally isn’t some new thing and it certainly isn’t correct either. Do you also get confused by other words with two conflicting meanings? Do you think a meat cleaver sticks meat together?

    • BluesF@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You seem to be missing a colon in your comment, that’s the little symbol with two dots and should be used when starting a list in that fashion, FYI.

      Also in what I assume was your haste to demonstrate that you use semicolons, you have misused the semicolon twice.