Og dreams of kernels [LWN.net]

Og dreams of kernels

Posted Aug 27, 2010 1:32 UTC (Fri) by ncm (guest, #165)
Parent article: Og dreams of kernels

"Lay" is past tense already, so "he lay down". Or, if you prefer, "He stumbleded back into the corner of the cave, and layed down, as he was tireded, and drifteded off back to sleep, dreaming of tiny sheep on meth." I suppose it has a certain caveman charm.

Most of the eggs you (or your favorite local restaurants) can buy in supermarkets in the U.S. come from one of two major chicken-keeping conglomerates, both with abominable records of every sort. You're better off buying from local organic producers. Getting your favorite restaurants to switch may be harder, but you can start by asking them.

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Lie and lay

Posted Aug 27, 2010 6:35 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (5 responses)

It is too easy to mistake lie (lay, lain) with lay (laid, laid). See usage note here or here. If you compare both with lie (lied, lied) it becomes a positive nightmare for foreign speakers. Luckily most of us are not exposed to lade (laded, laden), lea, lye, lien or ley in introductory courses. English spelling is calling for some 21th century normalization.

Anyway, *layed would be incorrect spelling for laid, but who am I to judge.

Lie and lay

Posted Aug 27, 2010 8:38 UTC (Fri) by james (guest, #1325) [Link] (1 responses)

You're expecting a caveman to get this right?

Lie and lay

Posted Aug 27, 2010 22:08 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

No, but we can expect more from the narrator, can't we? Even if I personally did have to look the whole thing up (and re-learned something in the process).

Lie and lay

Posted Aug 27, 2010 21:24 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

> English spelling is calling for some 21th century normalization.

Isn't this the task of American English?

Lie and lay

Posted Aug 27, 2010 22:11 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, but they stopped short, much too short of the really interesting rationalizations. I recommend reading Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue" for a lot of interesting details about British and American English spelling and pronunciation.

Bryson...

Posted Aug 31, 2010 23:46 UTC (Tue) by kena (subscriber, #2735) [Link]

He done pissed me off. Put down my damn huts on the Appalachian Trail in NH (his former state; my current one), had a BUNCH of errors in his history-of-the-Universe (or was it world?), and... well... I guess he and I are just on different pages.

If he wants to be paged to disk, I'm okay with that.