Bless me, reader, for I have sinned. It’s been over a year since my last English rant. Does that mean that in the past year I have not encountered any new distortions of the English language to annoy me? If only.
Frankly, I’m surprised at myself for taking this long to address the pervasive misuse of lay and lie. It’s a rare writer (or speaker) these days who can use them correctly. Their main difference? Lay is a transitive verb (i.e. takes an object, as in you lay something else down), where lie is intransitive, meaning something lies on the table inert, or reflexive, as in “I’m so tired after that foxhunt that I simply MUST lie down.” The children’s bedtime prayer that begins “Now I lay me down to sleep,” while not conventional in style, is grammatically correct since lay is used with me as an object. “Now I lie down to sleep” doesn’t scan in the rest of the prayer (which, aside from the trochaic first line, is in iambic tetrameter) and “Now I lay down to sleep” would fail either to scan or to impress the HolyOneBlessedBeHe. The first line of the closing song in Peter Jackson’s film “The Return of the King” is grammatically correct: “Lay down your sweet and weary head.” (Whatever I might think of Annie Lennox’s politics, she and Fran Walsh did write a beautiful song, and in proper English.)
What suddenly brought the topic of lay v. lie to mind? I recently received a forward of some amusing cat pictures from my father which included some witty captions. As one who detests cats (with only a few notable exceptions), I nonetheless found the captions to complement the photos nicely. My main complaint? The spelling was atrocious. Deliberately atrocious, mind, in the way teenagers and other illiterates use shorthand in written communication, e.g. “THE ART OF DISGUISE: not wurkin so gud,” “YOUR MAMA LOVES U: even if the other kids calls u fat, she knows uz jes fluffy,” and my least favorite, “u lookin 4 trubble? heer we are!” In the two photos I’ve included in this post, you can see that the individual who compiled this album of kitty kitsch, who seems bilingual in English and Webhand, is seriously challenged by the distinction described in this rant.
Readers, please teach your children the difference between lay and lie, and don’t let them grow up to be people who have too much time on their hands and spend it by displaying their ignorance of the English language aside some pictures of fluffy kitties.
Shimshonit 
My mother emphasizes the difference between lay and lie all the time.
is this your first run in with the lolcats phenomenon? Warning: it can be addictive.
Michael: The more I hear about your mom, the cooler I think she is.
Elisheva: It is. As to any likelihood of becoming addicted, to quote Levi Eshkol, “Watch me resist.”