I dream of the day when I won’t have to look at this fucking chart….
And here I’d thought everyone (except me) had given up on the distinction…
Seriously, though, I think intransitive to lie is on its way out. I see lay used for both even by professional journalists, at least online (maybe they don’t have copy editors?). I’m pretty sure the only reason I have the distinction firmly in my idiolect is because my mother was a copy editor. I’m a walking archaism.
But try as I might to be a good descriptive linguist, intransitive lay *just sounds wrong* to me. So I’m happy to encourage people to continue using this chart for their writing 🙂
While I’m being a horrible pedant (see my recent Grammatical PSA for a prior example of this), I’m going to try to clear up another usage problem that I see a lot in fic, including very well-written fic. Here’s the general principle:
When a line of dialogue is embedded in a sentence of narration, close it with a comma, not a period (though question and exclamation marks are OK) and don’t capitalize the first word of the rest of the sentence if it isn’t a proper name.
Here are some examples of the mistake I see people making and the correct punctuation.
Incorrect: “I have to go.” He said. Correct: “I have to go,” he said.
Incorrect: “It’s pretty late.” Said Bob. Correct: “It’s pretty late,” said Bob.
Incorrect: “I’m hungry.” Sam remarked. Correct: “I’m hungry,” Sam remarked.
Incorrect: “What a cute puppy!” The touch-starved grad student exclaimed. Correct: “What a cute puppy!” the touch-starved grad student exclaimed.
I do sometimes see people making a mistake in the opposite direction and closing a quotation with a comma even when followed by a sentence in which it is not embedded.
Incorrect: “I have to go,” he glanced anxiously at the clock. Correct: “I have to go.” He glanced anxiously at the clock.
Loki is the Philosopher King 