“He waved the subject of his greatness.”—Dryden. “To wave” is properly “to move loosely,” and should be distinguished from “to waive,” i.e. “to leave” or “to turn from.”—See Skinner’s Etym.
“It lays on the table; it laid on the table.” This error is very common, and should be carefully avoided. The verb to lay is an active verb; to lie is a neuter verb. When the subject of discourse is active, the former is to be used; when the subject is neither active nor passive, the latter ought to be employed. Thus, “he lays down the book,” “he laid down the book,” where the nominative expresses an agent, or a person acting. “The book lies there,” “the book lay there,” where the nominative expresses something, neither active, nor passive. When we hear such expressions as these, “he lays in bed,” “he laid in bed,” a question naturally occurs, what does he lay? what did he lay? This question demonstrates the impropriety of the expressions. The error has originated, partly in an affected delicacy, rejecting the verb “to lie,” as being synonymous with the verb “to tell a falsehood wilfully,” and partly from the identity of the one verb in the present with the other in the preterite sense; thus, “lay,” “laid,” “laid;” “lie,” “lay,” “lain.”
“The child was overlain.” The participle, for the reason now given, should be overlaid.
“It has been my brother you saw in the theatre, and not my cousin.” This use of the preterite definite is, I believe, confined to Scotland, where, in colloquial language, it is very common. The Scots employ it in those cases, in which an Englishman uses either the preterite indefinite, or the verb signifying necessity. Thus, in the preceding instance, an Englishman would say, “it must have been my brother, you saw in the theatre.”
“Without having attended to this, we will be at a loss in understanding several passages in the classics.”—Blair’s Lectures. “In the Latin language, there are no two words we would more readily take to be synonymous, than amare and diligere.”—Ib. This error occurs frequently in Blair. In the former example it should be shall, and in the latter should. (See [p. 98].)
An error, the reverse of this, occurs in the following passage. “There is not a girl in town, but let her have her will, in going to a mask, and she shall dress like a shepherdess.”—Spectator, No. 9. It should be, she will. The author intended to signify mere futurity; instead of which he has expressed a command.
“He rose the price of bread last week.” Here rose, the preterite of the neuter verb to rise, and, therefore, unsusceptible of a regimen, is ungrammatically joined with an objective case, instead of raised, the preterite of the active verb to raise. This error, therefore, involves a solecism, as well as an impropriety.
“Does the price of bread raise this week?” This error is the converse of the former, the active verb being here used instead of the neuter. The question, What does it raise? shows the impropriety of the expression. It ought to be, “Does the price of bread rise this week?” These verbs, like the verb to lay and to lie, are very often confounded in vulgar use.
“It would be injurious to the character of Prince Maurice, to suppose, that he would demean himself so far, as to be concerned in those anonymous pamphlets.”—Watson’s Philip III. Here the verb to demean, which signifies “to behave,” is used as equivalent to the verb to debase, or “to degrade.” This impropriety is now, I believe, almost entirely confined to Scotland; it has, therefore, been ranked in the number of Scotticisms. “I demean myself” is equivalent to “I behave myself;” and in this sense the author last quoted has, in another passage, very properly used it. “Such of the Morescoes might remain, who, for any considerable time, demeaned themselves as Christians.”—Ibid.