Does Trouble Lay Ahead?

Does trouble lay what ahead? That, oddly, would be the right reply to this title question, which I happened to read recently in the news online. The almost traditional difficulty writers seem to have distinguishing between the verbs lay and lie offers steady employment to those watching over the rules of English grammar. It’s possible, though, to understand the difference from a higher view. First, though, we do have to be clear about the grammar.

In the ill-sounding retort Does trouble lay what ahead? the pronoun what is the tell which reveals that the verb lay needs an object to act upon. Verbs that require an object (called properly a direct object) are classed as transitive; their action is figuratively conceived to go across (the Latin transit) from the subject and onto some other object; in behaving this way, they follow our natural, dualistic perception that things exist separately from one another and have an effect on one another, bringing about the unceasing change we call life. Other examples of transitive verbs are I usually eat lunch at noon, they took the train downtown, the car climbed the steep hill slowly, where the subject of each clause is directing the action of the verb toward the object named in the predicate—no matter how imaginative we might have to be in seeing an action going across from a subject onto some other predicate object. A car climbing a hill? Grammar is not logic.

Other verbs of action, however, do not require a direct object, and these are called intransitive: I left before noon, their train arrived late, the car moved slowly uphill. Intransitive verbs do not aim their action at something, but rather depict that action as an indefinitely extended movement, originating in and retained by the subject: I didn’t leave anything, I just left; their train didn’t arrive anything, it just arrived late. Intransitive verbs have evidently developed from another natural, experiential perception we have as humans, namely, that some kinds of action do not directly affect something else, but are nonetheless a regular part of the varied scenes we call life. And there is, in addition to all this, a subclass of verbs situated between transitive and intransitive which imply, but do not explicitly state, an object: he drinks a lot. Such verbs are called absolute, sometimes also being explained as the absolute use of a transitive verb. What exactly the subject drinks is not made clear, but there must be something, whether water, soda, or a few drafts too many of something a little stronger.

We now have enough grammar to understand that lay is a transitive verb (needing a direct object), and its troublesome counterpart lie is intransitive: I lay the book on the sand while I lie in the sun on the beach. And that is why it’s correct, though dissonant, to ask what does trouble lay ahead? The writer meant to ask does trouble lie ahead? because there is no logical answer to the request for a direct object answering what; the intention was merely to ask about an impending situation, and situations or circumstances are also a function of an intransitive verb. There was a time, the scholars say, when the confusion between lay and lie was, as one of them puts it, “venial”; for whatever reason, however, those times are no more, and the mix-up is now regarded as, if not mortal, then cringingly inexact.

And the worry over exactitude is where making the correct distinction between these two verbs (and others like them) is material to the integrity of our writing. Precision lies (not lays) at the heart of good style because the art of language is meant to communicate not only our often indefinable feelings, but our objective thoughts as well. The English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his Discourses on Art, told students at the Royal Academy that what style meant was the same in both painting and writing: “a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.” We might analogize this and say that while our sentiments, or feelings, may be intransitive, our conceptions must be transitive, naming exactly the object directly affected. For real trouble does lie ahead when we are not clear and precise.

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