DEAR RICHARD: Have you ever seen this tombstone?:
Here lies (not “lays”)
Billie Woody Robins Reed
English Teacher
–Bill Plachy, San Marcos
Your tombstone is a new one to me, and I am delighted to add it to my cemetery of
occupational epitaphs that demonstrate how some folks take their jobs with them to the very end.
I hope that readers will dig the humor and won’t find the plots too deep and the comedy too
grave:
Epitaph on a dentist:
Stranger: Approach this spot with gravity.
John Brown is filling his last cavity.
Epitaph on a lawyer:
Goembel, John E.
“The defense rests.”
Epitaph on an auctioneer:
Born 1828
Going!
Going!!
Gone!!!
1876
My favorite in this category is an epitaph on a waiter:
By and by,
God caught his eye.
My own tombstone may read:
I write. Therefore I am.
I wrote. Therefore I was.
Now let’s take up the lie vs. lay issue on the headstone that heads this column.. Among
the dozens of troublesome verbal twins that can bedevil us, lie and lay are the most frequently
confused pair in the English language. Stealthily, they lie in wait, ready to lay disorder and
embarrassment upon us.
Here’s the problem: Lie is an irregular verb that means “to repose” and conjugates lie-lay-
lain. Lay is a regular verb that means “to put” and conjugates lay-laid-laid. Lay is a transitive
verb; it usually takes an object. Lie is an irregular, intransitive verb; it never takes an object.
Because lay is both the present tense of to lay and the past tense of to lie and because the regular verb pattern has become dominant in English, many speakers and writers use lay when they should use lie.
The Toronto Globe and Mail reported the story of an aged gentleman still sharp of mind
and usage: “At 104, when he collapsed during a round of golf, his wife said, ‘Oh George. Do you
want to lay there a minute?’ He opened his eyes and said, ‘Lie there’ before passing out again.”
Try visualizing this cartoon: Two hens are pictured side by side in their nests. One is
sitting on an egg, and she is labeled LAYING. The other is flat on her back and labeled LYING.
Sorry for the fowl language, but I always talk turkey without turning chicken!
In another bestial cartoon, a man says to his dog, “Lay down!” and the dog rolls over on
its back. Then the master says, “Speak!” — and the dog says, “It’s lie.”
DEAR RICHARD: Is it correct to use the word that referring to a person rather than who?
Examples: “The child that was absent was sick.” “The child who was absent was sick.”
Referring to a person as “that” seems very disrespectful. –Alice Robeson. Oceanside
For centuries, that has been used to introduce adjective clauses that modify human
beings, as in Mark Twain’s novella “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” But to my ear, that
is too distant and impersonal for people. Stick with who, whom, and whose for people (and
animals who have names) and that and which for things and ideas.