Lay/lie in "Mad Men"

tegeus-Cromis

tegeus-Cromis

a better poet than swordsman
Joined
May 17, 2019
Messages
1,343
I've been rewatching Mad Men, and, while it's one of my top-two TV shows ever (feel free to guess the other one!), the number of times they misuse "lay" for "lie" drives me crazy. (Sorry, I have *tried* to tell myself it's colloquial, that languages evolve, etc, but no dice: it's still the mistake that probably grates the worst on my ears.) It turns out that I'm not the only one to have noticed. Someone already caught it ten years ago, after only three seasons had aired.

Ironic Sans: Mad Men Don't Lie

www.ironicsans.com www.ironicsans.com
 
Where I am it's lig so lay/lie is irrelevant.

"I'm going to lig down for a while"

"Lig that table"
 
Isn't it just normal US English to use "lay" where in Brit English it would be "lie".
 
HareBrain said:
Isn't it just normal US English to use "lay" where in Brit English it would be "lie".
Click to expand...
NO. It is uneducated US English, and while it has crept into semi-comman usage I'd submit that back in the '60s it was not acceptable at all. I vaguely remember a major kerfuffle the "first" time lay was used incorrectly in a major ad campaign back then, but I'd have to do some research to come up with a citation.
 
DannMcGrew said:
NO. It is uneducated US English, and while it has crept into semi-comman usage I'd submit that back in the '60s it was not acceptable at all. I vaguely remember a major kerfuffle the "first" time lay was used incorrectly in a major ad campaign back then, but I'd have to do some research to come up with a citation.
Click to expand...
*semi-common*
 
HareBrain said:
Isn't it just normal US English to use "lay" where in Brit English it would be "lie".
Click to expand...

No, we say booger, you say bouger. British 'u' snobbery is the gauge... err gage. Or is that joke too off color/colour? *snort* ;)

K2
 
Last edited:
I think of lay/lie in the same way (ie local practice) as sit/sat.

if I’m writing a story I’ll say ‘she was sitting at...’ whereas in speech i often catch myself using the more colloquial/idiomatic ‘she was sat at the ...’; there’s something more anecdotal about the latter which seems okay aurally if not visually.

I don’t think I have ever used ‘lay’ in the way the OP mentions tho, so I suspect it’s just become personal preference these days.

(Not the same, but: I’ll permit it where I wouldn’t permit the reprehensible ‘reach out’ instead of ‘contacted’ or ‘spoke to’ - or any of the other new wave soft speak. )

pH
 
Without the goofing around, I will say that in American English speech (I can't speak for British/other forms of English), lay is common but inconsequential. If I said to someone, "why don't you lay down and take a nap," or, "I'm gonna' lay down a while," though it might be improper, few people would care. It's casual conversation.

In fact, misuse of proper words in casual speech is sometimes more accepted by the majority than proper speech. You can claim it's an education or class thing, but formal speech in a casual situation strikes many people as though you're either trying to speak above them, or that you're impersonal, or that you're trying to conceal some personal shortcoming, etc..

Think about it... When speaking in a formal setting, many people tend to speak one way, and when they get into an informal setting, with friends, at the bar, with family...the slang, accents, and dialects come out.

Past that, 'lay lie' as a google search (which yields the typical vs. examples) nets 673,000,000 hits... That says something.

I will say this, if your dialogue reads like your narration, you're doing it wrong. Few people speak like formal English literature professors.

Can you dig it? ;)

K2
 
-K2- said:
I will say this, if your dialogue reads like your narration, you're doing it wrong. Few people speak like formal English literature professors
Click to expand...
This applies also to a common one I often use in posts/stories....gonna

"I was gonna say that"
"I was going to say that"

The first I say most of the time in everyday talking, so I use it in written dialogue.

The second I tend to say in more formal situations, in a vain effort to conceal my proletariat background.
 
-K2- said:
Without the goofing around, I will say that in American English speech (I can't speak for British/other forms of English), lay is common but inconsequential. If I said to someone, "why don't you lay down and take a nap," or, "I'm gonna' lay down a while," though it might be improper, few people would care. It's casual conversation.

In fact, misuse of proper words in casual speech is sometimes more accepted by the majority than proper speech. You can claim it's an education or class thing, but formal speech in a casual situation strikes many people as though you're either trying to speak above them, or that you're impersonal, or that you're trying to conceal some personal shortcoming, etc..

Think about it... When speaking in a formal setting, many people tend to speak one way, and when they get into an informal setting, with friends, at the bar, with family...the slang, accents, and dialects come out.

Past that, 'lay lie' as a google search (which yields the typical vs. examples) nets 673,000,000 hits... That says something.

I will say this, if your dialogue reads like your narration, you're doing it wrong. Few people speak like formal English literature professors.

Can you dig it? ;)

K2
Click to expand...
I agree with most or all of that. Of course, saying "It is I" makes you sound ridiculous. But using "lie" correctly is not in that category. It doesn't make you sound overly formal. On the other hand, using "lay," to my ears, is just an error. Interestingly, though, I'm from the North-east (and Canada before that), but I've lived in the Midwest for *cough*many years. And "lay" for "lie" is much more common around here than I remember it being in the Boston/NY or Toronto areas. But maybe I just wasn't as sensitive to it back then. In any case, it's so widespread here I'd call it a regionalism, like saying "Come with!" (Another expression I'd never heard, or noticed, before moving here.)
 
It's an incorrect use of English, but is it what these characters would realistically have said?
 
.
Matteo said:
All together now: Lie, lady, lie...lie across my big brass bed.



I normally say "The individual in question is one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun".
Click to expand...
I think you're right about "Lay Lady Lay". Popular songs, stories and drama have a huge influence on the way we speak and write and Dylan surely must have been an influence in this one. Or it was maybe Status Quo... "Roll Over Lay Down"
 
Thing is Lay Lady Lay wasn't released until 1969 so it couldn't have influenced Mad Men speech.
An old article from The Atlantic takes an interesting look at Mad Men vocabulary.
tinyurl.com

The Foreign Language of 'Mad Men'

The show prides itself for historical accuracy—but do the characters really talk like people from the '60s?
tinyurl.com tinyurl.com
 
*Some* characters may have spoken that way, but others definitely wouldn't have. So when they have Pete Campbell (from a moneyed WASP Manhattan background, graduated from Dartmouth) say "lay" for "lie," that feels completely inaccurate, and it shows that it's the writers' mistake, not something given to the characters for dramatic accuracy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top