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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: The Most Common Grammatical Error Made By Educated People Today? It used to be using the tautological, unacceptable, non-existent adjective "irregardless" in place of the correct word "regardless". But one hardly ever hears that mistake any more. This is good. Today many fairly-well educated politicians, bureaucrats, teachers at all level, media celebrities etc. mispronounce the word "forte" (one's strong point) as "fortay" which is a musical term meaning strong or loud. The musical term is spelled the same way, "forte", but must, according to our good dictionaries, be pronounced "fortay", not "fort". If one is referring to a person's strength in some area the word "forte" must be pronounced "fort". So whenever you hear a person say "fortay" when he/she is describing a person's "strong point, correct him He will silently thank you for it, but not for the embarrassment. Today by far the most common and annoying grammatical mistake, however, is made by people who should know better. They confuse the transitive verb "lay" (meaning "to place"), with the intransitive verb "lie" (meaning "to recline"). How often to you hear on TV, the radio, movies or in real life some person say "I found the body laying in the alleyway". It should be of course, " I found the body lying (i.e. reclining) in the alleyway" . The correct form is "I was lying down" when the phone rang, not I was "laying down". It is "I lay the book on the table", not "I lie the book on the table". Here are the infinitives, first person present tense, first person past tense and the present and past participles of the verbs "lie" and "lay". Transitive: i) to lie down, ii) I lie down, iii) yesterday I lay down, iii) I am lying down iv) I had been lying down Intransitive: ii) to lay ii) I lay the down iii) yesterday I laid the book down iii) I am laying the book down iv) I have laid the book down Get this straight. As George Orwell wrote: "Sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking, and sloppy thinking leads to sloppy politics"-- or words to that effect. Over the years I have made many errors in spelling and grammar myself. But I am not being pretentious in writing that the confusion between the two different verbs "to lie" (i.e. recline) and "to lay" (i.e. to place something") is inexcusable. It annoys me. After all, this basic grammar is not rocket science. Over the years I have made many errors in spelling and grammar myself. But I am not being pretentious in writing that the confusion between the two different verbs "to lie" (i.e. recline) and "to lay" (i.e. to place something") is inexcusable. It annoys me. After all, this basic grammar is not rocket science. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#5. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
(Edited)
It's useful to keep things in perspective and remember that most of these rules are highly arbitrary and dependent on popular habits which are subject to change over time. That's how our language came to be. For example, we have a word for a poisonous snake in English, "adder." A perusal of extant documents in English establishes that the word was once "nadder." (German and Dutch "Natter.") Over time with some words like nadder, an nadder became an adder, and there was nothing for it. Prescriptive grammarian couldn't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Similarly, when millions of folks say "His forte (for-tay) is playing the pianoforte," there's not a damned thing you can do about it.
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