If we can replace lay or lie with place, lay is correct. If we can replace them with recline, then lie is correct.
The Short Story
What’s the difference?
If we can replace lie with recline, then lie is the correct word to use.
Ex: Lie down.
If we can replace lay with place, then lay is the correct word to use.
Ex: Lay the book down.
The Novel
In order to understand the difference between lie and lay, it is important to know what these words actually mean. Lie means to recline. Lay means to place or set down. To help you remember the difference, just keep the following in mind: lie and recline both share a long I sound, while lay and place share a long A sound.
Although there are a few ways to determine if lie or lay should be used in a sentence, the easiest is to simply replace lie or lay with recline or place.
Let’s look at some examples:
Ex: I lie on the couch.
“Recline on the couch” makes sense. “I place on the couch” doesn’t make sense. So lie is correct.
Ex: I lay my bag on the floor.
“I place my bag on the floor” makes sense. “I recline my bag on the floor” doesn’t. Lay is correct.
Ex: The dog is laying in the sun.
“The dog is reclining in the sun” makes sense. “The dog is placing in the sun” doesn’t make sense. This means we should actually replace laying with lying.
Ex: She is lying her pencils in a row on her desk.
“She is placing her pencils in a row on her desk” makes sense. “She is reclining her pencils in a row on her desk” doesn’t make sense. Laying is correct here, not lying.
The Published Examples
“I would like to lie next to him in the dark and watch him breathe and watch him sleep and wonder what he’s dreaming about and not get an inferiority complex if the dreams aren’t about me.”
(Cohn, Rachel, and David Levithan. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. Ember, 2014.)
Lie is correct here because the speaker is not placing anything down. She is imagining herself reclining, or lying down.
“Now I lay me down to sleep . . .”
(Trafton O'Neal, Debbie. “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.” Augsburg Books, (n.d.).)
This example is tricky, but lay is the correct word to use here. The speaker is referring to themselves as an entity that they are placing down. If they said, “Now I lay down to sleep” instead, lie would be correct.
“Laying the Foundation for Girls' Healthy Futures: Can Sports Play a Role?”
(M, Brady. “Laying the Foundation for Girls' Healthy Futures: Can Sports Play a Role?” Studies in Family Planning, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1998, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9561671/. )
Although nothing is being physically placed down, laying is correct here because a metaphorical foundation is being built.
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