I'm struggling to figure out which word I should use for this sentence in my story. "High above the gates, the stone walkway completely covered with nest material was where the griffin laid" I'm writing in the past tense but I just don't know if this is correct or not, or if I should restructure the sentence, or if I should just use a different word like roosted. Can you help me?
I'd probably reword it, but I think the right word is 'lay' here. The Griffin is lying there themself, no one is laying him there, which would require 'laid' as in, I laid the book on the table. Edit: the Griffin is 'lying' there himself, not 'laying' there himself.
By the way, the original sentence is a little awkward to me, I'd probably write it like "High above the gates, nest material completely covered the stone walkway where the griffin lay, taunting his subjects even in his slumber"
I'd be very careful here, you're dangerously close to putting a Griffin and laid in the same sentence, provoking unwanted egg jokes... I think that's correct.
"Lay" is correct. "Lay" is two words. The first is the transitive present tense, meaning "to place" or "to set down." -- "As I enter the foyer, I lay the package on the desk next to the door." The second is the past tense of "lie," meaning "to recline." -- "I was tired, so I lay down to rest." Published authors (and their editors, in the case of many pulp fiction books) often get this wrong.
I've not thought too hard on this but (as you mention roosted (past tense)) maybe investigate 'lain' — where the griffin had lain..?
Lay, laid or lain all suggest egg symbolism to me and would pull me right out of the story and make me laugh. I would definitely find another way to say it. Maybe it crouched?
Thank you for this thread! Lay is the one verb in English that still makes my head spin. And I am a native English speaker! XD
You want "lay." (past tense) High above the gates, the stone walkway completely covered with nest material was where the griffin lay. (present tense) High above the gates, the stone walkway completely covered with nest material is where the griffin lies. Though I would probably shove the "was" somewhere else. I guess I'm assuming you really want to end with the griffin. There's a certain logic to that, and it's making the sentence feel inverted, but if the idea must come last then that's the effect you're going to have. Consider this though: High above the gates was the/a stone walkway completely covered with nest material where the griffin lay. That's about as close to the original as I can leave that edit. To me that still feels like it wants to be two lines, or at least re-sorted a bit. High above the gates stretched a stone walkway covered in bones, rags, and thatch stolen from the surrounding fields. It was where the griffin lay. Nothing wrong with "was" in moderation. I replaced one "was" at the beginning. It doesn't make the first line active. It's still a very quiet stative line which has the same feel as the second line, but it hides its "was." You've got to be careful with that workaround though, or the fix becomes its own problem.
"Nest material completely covered the stone walkway high above the gates where the griffin lay taunting his subjects, even in his slumber"
Yes, where the griffin lay. --------- lie-lay-lain (lying) (always intransitive) and lay-laid-laid (laying) (always transitive explicitly or implicitly) ...certainly do confound us in English. The only thing that Hollywood more consistently gets wrong is he/John and I vs him/John and me. The Germans and speakers of several Scandinavian languages ought to have the same problem with their liegen/legen and ligga/lägga – but they don't, and they don't understand why we do. (BTW there should not be a problem with lain suggesting egg symbolism, as lain is never transitive.) (And BTW lied applies only to the verb lie-lied-lied of telling untruths.) Rules add a level of mental indirection that's difficult for many people to absorb, even some who are talented writers. Language is imitative and adaptive, like music, so it's usually easier to absorb or outright memorize examples, as that's the way we originally learn our mother tongues, and also that way that most of the fastest adult learners of other languages learn those. It only takes an hour or less of concentration, focused mostly on the bolded sentences above and repeated a few times in the following days, to unconfuse oneself forever about lie-lay-lain and lay-laid-laid.
griffin lay there (he was there already) griffin lie there (like right now?) griffin laid there (he was there already but for much longer maybe) griffin lied there Tricky, I struggle with this too. You could also say he 'lied' down if it was an active action.
I think most of us get confused with this, but I think 'laid' can ONLY be used in the context of placing another object (or person) onto some other surface. In other words, for 'laid' there must be an object that is being manipulated by someone or something else.
Correct. "Griffin lay there" is correct. "Griffin lie there" is incorrect. Incorrect You could say this but, if you did, you would be incorrect.
