ESL Blogs

We all have certain words that send us to the dictionary over and over. Sometimes it's a spelling problem. For example, I have trouble spelling the word "definitely". Other times it's an irregular verb that causes the problem. No matter how many times you read the rules, you still have trouble remembering. Are there certain words that you avoid because you don't want to use them wrong? For me, it's "lay" and "lie". Let's get these words straight once and for all! 

Your Task

1) Review EnglishClub.com's lesson "Lay or Lie?".

2) Take the Lay Lie quiz to check your understanding. Review it again! (I did.)

3) Create a new blog post. Use the title "Writing Challenge: I'm not lying."

4) Tell us a lie. Use your imagination. Make it a big lie! Include 1 thing that is true in your lie.

5) Use as many of the following 10 words as you can in your post.

• lie (to tell an untruth)
• lie (to recline)
• lay (to put something in a horizontal position)
• lied
• laid
• lain
• lies
• lays
• laying
• lying

*Advanced learners can also include phrasal verbs with "lay". 

6) Double check to make sure you used each one correctly! 

7) Come back to this post and share a link to your lie. We will visit your post and try to guess the one thing that is true.

My Example

I was once the manager of a clothing store.  One day when I unlocked the store, one of the mannequins was lying on the ground. Somebody had stolen the bottom half of the body! I ran to the front of the shop and laid my keys on the counter. Then I searched around the store. Nothing else seemed out of place. The cash from the day before was right where the night staff had laid it in the safe. I called my boss and told her what had happened. My boss was not happy because she was on vacation. She laid into me for being unreliable, and she accused me of lying! I had a bad reputation for playing jokes on my fellow employees. 

"When I come back I'm going to lay down the law!" she said. "No calling me unless it's an emergency. I'm tired of your practical jokes!"

When I got off the phone, my co-worker arrived for her shift. My co-worker's name was Tanya. She was a laid back person like me. She had been laid off over the winter, but she was hired back for spring. Tanya asked why I was crying.  I showed her the broken mannequin and her face went red. "I did that," she said.

"Don't lie!" I said.

"I'm not lying," she told me. "I was trying to change its pants to blue jeans, but the pants ripped! I decided to bring the pants home and sew them up. I laid the top half of the mannequin on the ground before I went home for the evening." 

"You should have left a note!" I told Tanya. "The night staff always lays notes on the front counter," I reminded her.

Tanya didn't say anything more. She pointed to the front desk where I had laid my keys. Her note was under the keys. It said: Don't panic about the mannequin. I'll put it back together when I come in. The other half of him is lying in the back room.

I sat down where the top of the mannequin had lain all night, and let out a big sigh. I lay against the wall and apologized.  Tanya laid the mended clothing on the counter, and went to the back to get the bottom half. We worked together to reassemble  and dress the model in blue jeans. 

"I lied about one thing," Tanya said after we had put the mannequin back up in the store window."It wasn't pants I was trying to put on the mannequin last night. I was going to dress him in a skirt as a joke."

"The skirts don't fit on the male mannequins!" I told her. 

"I know," Tanya said. "It's actually the skirt I had to bring home to mend, " she said. She reached for the clothing that lay on the counter to reveal her handiwork. 

We laughed and opened the store for our first customer of the day. 

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Which line is true?