Remember, you lie down (or assume a prone position) and you lay (or place, set or put) something down. In the case of the bedtime prayer, you are laying yourself or "me" down, so lay is correct.

Lie and lay. They’re the grammar stickler’s equivalent of a secret handshake. Use these words just so and you’re signaling to like-minded language lovers: I’m in, a member of the club ...

Lie / lay / lain Lie is the present tense. I’m going to lie down. Lay is the past tense. Last night, I lay down too early and couldn’t fall asleep. Lain is the past participle.

At any given moment, the land just lies there, too. But when we talk about “the arrangement of the natural features of an area,” we’re referring to the “lay of the land.” To “lie low ...

The past tense of “lie” is “lay” — spelled and pronounced the same as the other “lay.” The guardians of language evolution never should have allowed this to happen.

In fact, let’s get all the snickering over now: “lie, lay, laid.” Snicker, snicker, snicker. Even writers for the nation’s best publications confuse these two words.

So today you lie on the couch, but yesterday you lay on the couch. The past participle, the one that goes with a form of “have,” is “lain”: In the past you have lain on the couch.

People lie (tell something not true) and when they do, they are “lying,” not laying. Laid is never used for lie. I laid down (or I had laid down) for a nap is wrong.

The fact that the past tense of “lie” is “lay” causes confusion. And, to make matters worse, the present participle of “lie” is “lain,” a verb that sounds as archaic as a Victrola.

Of the various forms of the vexing verbs “lay” and “lie,” the rarest is “lain.” So I was particularly disheartened to see this recently in the first third of a 64-word sentence ...