When it’s used to mean that you are going to lie down. The only time lay should be used in this sense is when you are speaking in the past tense. So:
“He went upstairs and lay on the bed” is OK.
“I’m going to lay down” in generally considered nonstandard usage, even though it is rather common.
“Lay” is a transitive verb, something you do to something else. e.g. “I’m going to lay the clothes out on the bed.”
[State of Denial]Oh yes it was![/State of Denial]
That would be funnier if I actually knew Old English.
Every President since Jimmy Carter has used “hopefully” in the sense you deride. At this point it’s time to give up.
The way I’ve heard it put is, "You lay something down, and then it lies there.
Ahem, please add the following to the end of my post: "
:smack:
It isn’t the only one. I frequently hear momentarily cited as another offender. It ought to mean “for a moment”, but people more commonly use it to mean “in a moment.”
“I’ll be with you momentarily” should mean “I’ll be with you for only a moment”, but is invariably used and interpreted as “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
I have mixed feelings about the whole issue of language change and usage; on the one hand, it’s probably unstoppable and has always happened - we don’t bemoan the misuse of the word item, do we? - but on the other hand, it hurts to see individual cases of misuse, particularly when they appear to arise out of simple ignorance.
I have no suggestions.
Epitome means, roughly, representative, or average; most people use it to mean best, or apex: the be all and end all. You would use it to say something is a perfect representative its group, and most people use it to say something is the very best of its group.
Why should it mean that? Did Jesus tell us that’s what it should mean?
Newsflash: words mean what the speaker and the audience agree that they mean. That is the only proper judge of whether language is “correct” or “incorrect.” Rants like the OP display absymal misunderstandings of the very fundamentals of human language.
Daniel
I have half a mind to start a Pit thread about misusage of the words ‘awful’ and ‘terrific’.
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
Newsflash: words mean what the speaker and the audience agree that they mean. That is the only proper judge of whether language is “correct” or “incorrect.”
And how do they come to this agreement? Does the speaker send out bulletins with the lexicography of the day? Does a child invent his own language while growing up? No, he is told what words mean and corrected when he misuses them. It is pointless to insist that words must always have one and only one meaning, but it is ludicrous to assert that a word only means what the speaker and audience agree. What about an inadvertent audience? If you and I agree that “nigger” means “peanut” should anyone overhearing us be offended? And what if half the intended audience asserts one meaning while the other half asserts the other? There must be some appeal to tradition and authority or language becomes meaningless. Would it make sense for me to take a Spanish course and challenge the instructor on every definition?
That’s bullshit. While the debate concerning when language changes will rage, we do not learn to communicate by agreeing with each other. English is not re-invented in every goddamn conversation. Some, yes. However, language is a learned behavior, not an inate one, as you seem to so religiously imply.
The difference between lay and lie, for example, was taught to me by someone in a position of authority. (My 2nd grade teacher. Catch up, people!), and one person using it incorrectly is not enough to change the meaning of the word. They’re simply using it incorrectly.
Sometimes new word usage (bad hair day, for instance) or an incorrect word usage reaches a critical mass and the language has shifted, and the OED updates. We are not just grunting to each other. We all learned. And those who were not successful at learning are properly ridiculed, shunned, and mourned. Sometimes they win anyway.
But words don’t just happen. The only way we know what a word means is if someone tells us, and society has structured itself so that some people have more authority to tell us than others.
Haha! I should think that the nasty underground chemical wastes where I live have been around for at least 91 years, but they are still pollution.
So, to use a phrase that everyone here is allowed to dislike, That’s you tellt" 
(N.B. That was a joke: just a bit of Glasgow slang)
However, more seriously, with regard to “momentarily”, I think that might only be a BritSpeak v. Amerispeak thing, as I don’t think I have encountered it here.
Likewise, with what Lissener said about “epitome”: I don’t think I have heard it misused. (YET)
(Disclaimer - if this post is still full of typing mistakes, I insist that it is the fault of the sun shining into my eyes. Honestly!)
You know, it’s funny . . . even the dictionary disagrees with pizzabrat here, but I bet the dictionary’s just wrong. We must accept that on the authority of pizzabrat, who knows more than the writers of the OED!
Incidentally, the American Heritage English Dictionary’s usage panel approves the new usage of “hopefully.”
Actually, you’re the one advocatins some sort of dogma about language…
And I’ll wager that at least 90% of Enlgish speakers don’t know the difference between lay and lie, and use them interchangeably. If I say “I am going to lay down for a nap” or “I’m going to lie down for a nap”, no one would be confused about the meaning of either sentence.
Those authority figures try, but to no avail. One cannot manage language.
[QUOTE=trandallt]
What ABOUT an inadvertant audience? If the speaker and the inadvertant audience don’t agree on the meaning of a word, then communication doesn’t happen. Forgive me a “duh” here: that wasn’t a flaw is my statement. And it’s a pretty fucked up example you gave, inasmuch as you manage somehow to find a way to play the racism card in a grammar discussion.
Try again.
Daniel
This is undoubtedly true, and i tend to think that if the speaker and the audience both understand what is being said then there’s not to much to worry about.
But just how far are you willing to take this? After all, if i said “I am going to nkjwdpo down for a nap,” chances are that people would know what i was going to do, and could infer the meaning of “nkjwdpo” from the rest of the sentence. Does that mean that “nkjwdpo” is a reasonable substitute for “lie”?
I realize that this is a rather extreme example, but i just think that, while we needn’t wallow in dogmatic prescriptivism, we also need to avoid unreflective descriptivism.
No, because it makes the audience stumble: the listener must work really hard to extract the meaning, whereas had the speaker said “lie,” the listener’s extraction of meaning would’ve been effortless. Sometimes it’s worth forcing the listener to work for meaning, but not if there’s no benefit to the work.
On the radio this morning, they talked about the phrase, “I heard you paint houses,” as a euphemism for, “I understand you’re a hired killer.” This is a great example: although “painting houses” is not defined in the dictionary as “killing people for money,” both the speaker and the audience knew what the phrase meant, and so communication happened perfectly. Indeed, it happened better than it would’ve if the speaker said, “I understand you’ll murder someone if I pay you enough,” because then the audience might’ve gotten distracted by fear of being overheard, or by getting all offended.
What the dictionary says the words mean is only helpful inasmuch as it gives you a sense of what people probably mean when they use a word, or what people probably will expect you to mean when you use a word. It in no way should circumscribe your language usage, and getting angry when people use words in non-dictionary ways is very stupid.
Daniel
Of course that’s true, but the point i was trying to make is that, in some instances there is a middle ground where it may not be extremely difficult to extract meaning, but at the same time it might also not be completely effortless. As usual in debates like this, it is the borderline rather than the extreme cases where problems are most likely to ensue.
Past experience makes it clear that i’m not going to shift you from your extreme descriptivism, and that’s fine. I agree that in most cases the ever-changing usage of the English language doesn’t impede relatively clear communication. I just think it’s worth hanging on to some distinctions because, in some cases, there would actually be less effort expended in sticking to them rather than abandoning them.
And, FTR, i don’t really consider lie/lay as one worth fighting too strenuously for.