Ask Me a Question

If you have a writing, grammar, style or punctuation question, send an e-mail message to curiouscase at sign hotmail dot com.

Add Your Own Criminal Sentence!

If you find a particularly terrible sentence somewhere, post it for all to see (go here and put it in the Comments section).

Monday, May 30, 2011

Poll Results 136

Here was the question:

Which word is used incorrectly here? "While I spent over two years querying agents and small presses, my manuscript laid dormant."

"While"
4 (5%)
"Over"
3 (4%)
"Laid"
46 (65%)
More than one is incorrect.
9 (12%)
The sentence is just fine as is.
8 (11%)

The pesky verb "to lie" is the source of the error here. The simple past tense of "to lie" is "lay"; the past participle of "to lie" is "laid."

No comments: