Lie / Lay

It's been too long… far too long. December 2011... I'm embarrassed.

I've been involved in many things, and I offer my sincerest apologies for my absence.

I'm terrible at remembering about my blogs. Amusingly though, I sometimes still write the entries (I just don't post them).
However, yesterday my friend Sandy (She's amazing and a very inspirational writer, so check her out!) posted something on my Facebook wall, and thus here we are today.

Today (really it was April 2012... a full year ago), whilst talking to a friend online, she said, "I'm laying in bed"; that comment inspired this entry.

Anyhow, a simple difference between "Lie" and "Lay".

It's actually far simpler than people think.

Let's ignore the fact that "lie" also means, "intentionally speaking falsities".

We're going to tackle the present tense first.

Lie: To assume a horizontal resting position

Lay: To be put in the above mentioned position.

It's that simple. Lie is what YOU do. Lay is what you do TO something.

I lie down in bed.

I lay the pencil on the floor.

Of course, then we get to past tense. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Now it gets VERY fun!

The past tense of "Lay" is "Laid" and the past of "Lie" is "Lay". Oh man that's confusing!

Not as confusing as you think though.

Yesterday, I laid that pencil on the floor.

Yesterday, I lay on the sofa for two hours.

I'm laying the law on "Lie" and "Lay", and I won't take it lying down.

There / Their / They're

I am posting this for a friend of mine. About 30 minutes ago, on some Social Networking site, she posted, "they're, their, there


They all have different meanings/uses. Figure it out. It's not hard."

As per usual, I had another post ready to put up, which will now have to wait.

Like Your / You're, this should be fairly obvious to any native speaker of our lovely language. However, for some reason, it isn't.

I will present the rules of these three words.
There = A place / direction.
Their = Possessive
They're = They are

These are pretty simple. Being so similar to my other post, we'll start by covering the bottom two.
Remember that the "re" in "They're" is the word "are" with the "a" removed.

If one can replace "They're" with "They are" in a sentence, well, you have your answer.
It's that simple.

For example: "They're getting the facts right."
That means: "They are getting the facts right."
Alternatively: "Their facts are right."
That means: "The facts belonging to those people are correct."

When one of these is used in place of the other the confusion is unavoidable.

Let's approach the last one.
"There"
It can be used in a multitude of ways. All in all it translates to a direction or place.

For example: "Put it there."
That means: "Put this object in that place."
For example: "There is a person."
That means: "A person exists in that direction."
For example: "YOU THERE!"
That means: "You… person at whom I am looking… in that place / direction."

There are many ways to improve their grammar. They're just going to have to pay attention.

Allude / Elude / Illude

I again apologize for my extended absence. My previously mentioned idea was to start making grammar videos to post here and elsewhere but that fell through. I may do it sometime in the future.

The Cunning Grammarian is back once more.

On to the next subject!

Before my absence I seemed to be focussing on homophones, thus today will be no different.
These three words sound similar and yet they are so different. To compare them would be equivalent to comparing a fish to a table to a book.

Let's define them.

Allude = suggest, call attention to something, hint, mention without discussing, etc.
Elude = to escape, fail to grasp, unable to reach a goal, etc.
Illude = to trick, to deceive, to be cunning, etc.

It can get a little more confusing to the ear when we turn the words into nouns.

Allusion
Elusion
Illusion

However, the words generally retain their definitions, so no extra thought needs to go in.

To use them all in a sentence.
The criminal illuded the audience when she alluded that eluding the police would be easy.

Apologies

I wish to extend my utmost formal and sincere apologies for not updating in such a long time.

I'm thinking over the process that I use for these blogs and I'm considering a change. (Well, my friend is convincing me.)

Either this change will be coming or there will be a slew of entries. (Yes, I have still been writing blog posts, just not publishing them.)

I hope to have something for you dear readers very very soon.

All the best.

Affect / Effect

I've had this entry planned for a while but something kept happening to delay it.
In my last blog post, Accept and Except, I alluded to today's entry.
In fact, after last week's entry, this subject was requested.
After the long wait here it is, "Affect" versus "Effect".

This one often seems to confuse the pants off of people. (See blog entry "Literally" to realize I'm being figurative.)
If you're chatting with me, and you get this one wrong, I will most likely not point it out. However, the difference should be known.

Both affect and effect, generally have the same definition. Causing a change, or a consequence.
"Cunning Grammarian, what's the difference?"
Well, dear reader, the difference is one is a noun and the other a verb.

Affect is the verb.
Effect is the noun.

How can you tell the difference easily? "The" is the answer. If you can put "The" in front of the word properly, then it is "effect". You can remember it because "The" ends in "E" and "effect" starts with an "E".

The effect of bowling in slippers is that you may slide all over the lane.
Bowling in slippers affects how you move; consequently, you may slide all over the lane.

That is how effect will affect your writing.

(In psychology it seems that "affect" can also be used as a noun, but this is not in typical day to day use.)

Accept / Except

Today, at 3:30 am, whilst chatting with an acquaintance of mine, he made a mistake and I ignored it; upon reflection, I'd now like to weep.
The message was as follows:
"i wanna go to the party accept i gotta babysit my brother"
Emotionally, this rips apart my insides. Though, the inverse mistake is just as bad, the following was a different conversation, 15 minutes later:
"I was excepted to the English program at York"
This is NO joke, someone was "excepted" (read: accepted) to work toward her MA in English.

Accept and Except are very different words. They share no relation, and thus, unlike my upcoming entry, should never be confused. (You'll have to check back in a few days to find out.)

Accept = To acquiesce, to give an affirmative answer, to consent, to be given permission, to believe, etc.
Except =  To exclude, to omit, but, etc.

A quick way to remember the difference is to use the letter "X". One uses "X", as in "eXcept", to cross out an item.

To fix the above examples: (Taking some grammarian liberties.)
"I want to go to the party, except I must babysit my brother."
and
"I was thrown out of the English MA program at York."
Just kidding…
"I was accepted to the English program at York"

On top of it all, accept that except, should never end a sentence.
(…except in rare situations… Except is a typically a preposition; it can also be a conjunction and archaically it is a verb. However, "except" still should never end a sentence.)

Itch / Scratch

My apologies for such a delay in posting an entry; I've been a bit under the weather.

The time is currently 3:48 in the morning and I am having trouble sleeping. When this happens I tend to watch videos; tonight I chose to watch a comedian. I am 2:24 into the act, including the introduction, and I am infuriated in a manner that deserves a blog entry.

The comedian has just described a man in an airport who, "was so outta shape… he was like trying to itch his back and he couldn't reach it…"

This is just wrong, so very very wrong. It is so wrong, that if it were to be any more wrong, it would cause a haemorrhage in my brain.

Let us define the two words in question, shall we?

Itch = a discomfort or irritation to the skin, a restless or great desire, etc.
Scratch = to relieve said itch, to rub the skin, to scrape, writing on a surface, etc.

Clearing this up once and for all.

An itch is what you have when your skin is irritated.
A scratch is what you do to relieve the itch.

If you want to itch yourself, go to a magic or novelty store, buy some itching powder and rub it all over your body.

Then, when you want to get rid of it, SCRATCH yourself. (Truth to be told, that would most likely make it worse; instead of scratching, get some sort of anti-itch cream.)

Don't forget, when you're itching for relief, it's a scratch not an itch.