Bryan Garner bitch slaps Ed Zotti

[Pierrot_Le_Fou]

I get Bryan Garner’s daily usage tip. In today’s tip, Garner went after Ed Zotti.

@Bryan Garner

Part E: “lain” for the Past-Participial “laid.” This is a ghastly example of hypercorrection, that is, choosing the more far-fetched (and, as it happens, wrong) term in a contorted attempt to be correct – e.g.: “But to me it seemed like the kind of thoughtless destructiveness that has lain [read ‘laid’] waste to much of the city.” Ed Zotti, “Supporters Fervent About Rogers Park’s Future,” Chicago Enterprise, May 1994, at 30.

emphasis added.

Are you going to take that insult Mr. Zotti? I say it’s time for an all-out usage war.

[friedo]

Sounds like Mr. Garner needs to get lain.

[Oakminster]

@friedo

Sounds like Mr. Garner needs to get lain.

You win the thread.

[Inner_Stickler]

As far as I know, the expression is lay waste, not lie waste, in which case laid would be correct and lain would not. I see no reason to defend Mr. Zotti when he is wrong.

[Pierrot_Le_Fou]

I am not saying Mr. Zotti was correct, but he find an even more ghastly example of incorrect hypercorrection by Mr. Garner.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of usage war.

[Manduck]

Let’s ask Cecil Adams!

[Bike_Rider]

@friedo

Sounds like Mr. Garner needs to get lain.

Bravo!

[Duckster]

@friedo

Sounds like Mr. Garner needs to get lain.

You need a dangling participle for that and Garner’s is past.

[BigT]

@friedo

Sounds like Mr. Garner needs to get lain.

But Lain no longer exists.

/obscure?

[GuanoLad]

Looks more like a typo to me.

[The_Second_Stone]

Really? Who gives a shit? William Safire is dead, and the rest of us are busy living our lives.

[Skammer]

I hope nobody digs up anything I wrote in 1994.

[Pierrot_Le_Fou]

@The_Second_Stone

Really? Who gives a shit? William Safire is dead, and the rest of us are busy living our lives.

Speaking of Safire’s passing, God does Ben Zimmer suck.