That Armchair thread was fun so far. Everyone was playing it cool. It coulda been funny. Oh well. Meanies.
But seriously . . .
I said:
And then Lib said:
I assume I used the wrong word. What is the proper way to say “lays on couch” without implying that I passed an egg (the hard way)?
DaLovin’ Dj
Lies on couch?
I guess you’re just too wild for this crowd.
Hard to believe given some of the sex threads I’ve read!
If that’s true I am so mad at myself. Not only did I say it incorrectly, but I missed an opportunity for an ironic play on words. Grrrrrrrrr. That thread could have been so much more. A moment of silence for what should have been . . .All right enough of that, I gotta go get drunk.
DaLovin’ Dj
“Lie” is what you do yourself. “Lay” is what you do to something (or someone) else. So you lie down, but you lay the book down. If the object (thing) being set down is not the subject of the sentence, then you use “lay;” if it is the subject of the sentence, then you use “lie.” I have to lie down, I have to lay this burden down.
dalovindj
Dude, I like some of your hipness threads and shit like that, and I do enjoy some of your cafe posts but this is trolling.
Erek
A factual grammar question is trolling?
Wrong forum, maybe, but not trolling.
mswas, you are…nah, been there too often.
mswas
Glad you have enjoyed some of my posts. I don’t think that thread was trolling. This stuff pops up alot here. There is a huge tendency lately to try to analyze(sp?) this board and it’s inhabitants. Rather than beat around the bush in this thread and that, I thought it would be cool for people to have a forum to just come out and do it.
I was hoping for a self-depricating, good-intentioned, and comedic type of thread. Some seem to think it was going to turn into a mean-spirited fuck-you type of thread. Guess we’ll never know.
DaLovin’ Dj
Given that, you’d think dalovindj would be intimately familiar with the difference!
Are you talking about this thread, or the armchair thread? Because if you’re talking about this thread, I don’t see it. And if you’re talking about the other thread, I think it was pretty clear that dalovindj wasn’t being intentionally incindiary. It wasn’t entirely thought out, IMO, but was intended to be harmless.
Close but no cigar.
Lie is an intransitive verb, lay is always transitive. In other words, lie does not require a direct object, and lay does.
It is perfectly correct, if a bit stilted, to say “I lay myself down.” But without the direct object, it’s wrong.
It is basically the same distinction between the verbs hang and hang.
“He was hanged.”
“He hung the picture on the wall.”
Hang, hanged is intransitive, while hang, hung is always transitive.
MR
The only trolling I saw on the other thread was when Esprix came in to tell us:
What happened to the armchair thread? Did it get taken away by the black helicopters?
And that would be trolling… how, exactly?
Esprix
Well, I thought it very much on the trollish side, since you came in the thread only to say that you were sure it was going to be closed. And the part about ‘warning’ us seemed a little over the top. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy most of your posts. I just find your unending attacks on some posters here tiring. If you have a problem with someone, start a thread or take it to email. Don’t go arround pissing on people’s threads because you don’t like them. You don’t like DaLovinDJ. We get it. Now, unless he starts insulting you, leave him alone, please.
MAEG, mon ami, what you said is the same as what I said, only you said it better. I said “lie is what you do yourself” – not “lie is what you do to yourself.”
I realize the confusion arises when a person iss doing something to him or herself, and is therefore both the subject and the object, but really how often does that come up with this meaning of “lie”? Only when you’re laying yourself down. And when does this meaning of “lie” ever take a direct object? I can’t think of an example. If there’s an object involved – including the self – then the correct word is “lay.”
So I wasn’t *wrong – God forbid, right? – just totally unclear. 
I’m sorry, when did voicing an opinion equate to trolling? And where, exactly, did I attack dalovindj? I saw the thread, I saw it was a bad idea, and I said as much (and I obviously wasn’t off the mark, as John closed the thread and agreed with me). I don’t care if Polycarp had posted it, I would have said the same thing. And I posted the rest because I knew just by posting something in the thread I would more than likely become a subject for the OP (as Izzy so predictably proved :rolleyes: ). If you tell me you can’t see that that thread had the potential for becoming an all-out flame-fest, then I’d say it’s time to clean off that monitor screen.
It seems the OP could have been interpreted as trolling, not anything I said in response. It also seems a moderator agreed.
Do you still have a point, or does that pretty much sum it up?
Esprix
Esprix
Ok, I misread your post then. I know the thread could have turned ugly, but it could also have remained in good fun. A lot of threads could turn ugly. I just saw your post as a self-fulfilling prophecy. No hard feelings here, and I hope I did not cause any on your side.
John Corrado, would you have closed that thread whether or not I had posted in it?
Esprix
Jodi, ma fiancée, you are actually still a little south of unclear.
Whether or not you are doing it to yourself is not really the issue. That property of a verb is called reflexivity. Either lay or lie can be reflexive. So reflexivity or lack thereof is not a useful distinction to make between the two.
Exactly never, because lie is always intransitive. 
But yes, I think we really are in fundamental agreement here. Marvelous to tell.