On March 4 this year, National Grammar Day, the AP Stylebook editors tweeted a question for their readers:
What grammar rule do you find yourself getting wrong no matter how many times you look it up? Tell us your grammar kryptonite.
The feed I saw had 72 Quote Tweets. If “Quote Tweets” means “responses,” then I read them all. I did not take the time to count the repetitions, but I did note some clear winners. I’d say that the top two were these:
affect vs effect
lay/lie and all their tenses
It’s not as if the people who responded to the AP quiz haven’t been trying. They have looked up these bêtes noires numerous times in the AP Stylebook. The bitter truth remains that for some of us, some points of grammar and usage just won’t stick in our brains. Lack of grammar instruction in the early grades accounts for some persistent errors, but not all. Sometimes our brains are just blind to the reasoning behind the rule.
In this post, I’ll address the top two “kryptonite” examples given in the Twitter thread.
affect and effect
Although spelled differently, these two sound identical in speech, so it’s not surprising that speakers stumble when putting them into written form. It doesn’t help that effect functions as both noun and verb. As for affect, its most common use is an action verb, but psychologists sometimes use affect as a noun. Here are examples of correct usage of affect and effect:
We hope that the pandemic will not permanently affect social interaction. (verb)
What is the effect of gamma rays on Man-in-the-Moon marigolds? (noun)
The new law will effect a much needed change in wetland protections. (verb)
Often, the patient’s affect changes with his environment. (noun, in the sense of “feeling, emotion, mood”)
TIP: When used as a noun, effect will usually have an article in front of it: the effect, an effect, the uncertainty effect, to have an effect, etc. A clue to the use of effect and affect as verbs is the presence of a helping verb in front of them: will effect, may affect.
lay and lie
Sorting out the usage of this family of verbs requires a mastery of the concept of transitive and intransitive verbs. I don’t think that young people are being taught this concept anymore. Plus, so many speakers and writers now use the words interchangeably—even in professional contexts— I believe that attempting to maintain the distinction is a lost cause. While writing this post, I glanced at a news item in the Daily Mail, in which I read that a person shot a man and “then approached him while he was still laying on the ground.” I’ve seen lay used for lie in The New York Times and in The Washington Post. It’s a dead horse, folks.
Nevertheless, I’ll provide examples of preferred usage.
The verb lay, meaning, “to place” or “to put”
The verb forms are lay, laid, have laid, laying
Lay the book on the table. (Lay is transitive here. Its object is “the book.”)
My father is laying tile in the basement. (Laying is the present participle of lay. The object is “tile.”)
I think I laid my keys on the kitchen counter. (Laid is the past of lay. The object is “my keys.”
TIP: When the verb lay (to put or to place) is used correctly, it will be followed by a word that answers “what?” Lay what? “the book.” Is laying what? “the tile.” Laid what? “my keys.”
The verb lie, meaning, “to recline”
This verb is intransitive. It does not take an object. There is no word that answers “what?” after it.
The forms are lie/lies, lay, have lain, lying
He lies in bed until noon. (Third person present singular)
I lie in bed until seven. (First person present singular)
The man was lying in the parking lot. (Lying is the present participle of to lie (to recline))
The dog lay in the shade. (Lay is the past tense of to lie (to recline).
We have lain on the beach since dawn. (Lain is the past participle of to lie (to recline)
TIP: I can’t think of a universally helpful tip for this one. The problem is that both verbs, the one for “to place” and the one for “to recline” share a form spelled lay. The speaker who is unable to remember the difference between present tense lay—place or put—and past tense lay—reclined—will continue to use them incorrectly. The best tip I can think of requires a person to understand the concept of verbs that have objects. Lay in the sense of “to put” needs an object and lie in the sense of “to recline” does not.
In addition to affect/effect and lay/lie, five more items were cited as kryptonite numerous times in the responses to the AP question. I’ll review them in future posts.
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Original post: AP Quiz Top Two Anathemas
