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Today's rant is too long and I was tempted to delete it. Instead, be credibly advised that it will be a total waste of time if you have things you should be doing. Or it will just be boring, if you have nothing to do and need a time filler. If you are a grammar-afficianado - you might like it.
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Yesterday I wondered if it was lay or lie (when a bound book can lie or lay flat) - and perhaps someone has sent a comment telling me which it is. As I write this on Oct 10, Nov 3 is way into the future. My rant is not a rant at grammar - it is a rant at myself for some kind of mental block about learning to conjugate lie/lay. I remember trying to figure laying/lying/lain?/etc as far back as high school - more than 50 years ago. I can learn things if I have one of those *memory tricks* but so far, I have not been able to come up with a memory trick.
If anyone has a memory trick for the conjugation of lie and lay --- please share it with me. If you do not know what memory tricks are - or what I mean by *memory trick* - it might be because there is a word for memory tricks that I can't remember. If you have a memory trick for remembering that word: please share.
There are probably several kinds of memory tricks. One is the Roy E. ??? I can never remember all of that one. It is the sequence of colors in the spectrum Red Orange Yellow Green - oh - I didn't even get the 4th letter right. It rhymes with E and I know it is supposed to be Green - so, I can deduce that it is Roy G. Then we have Blue Violet - or is it purple - and clearly I have no idea where to go from here.
Do not bother to help me with the color one - because it is not information that I need. Let's go back to how frustrating lie and lay are. Yesterday I was writing about a type of binding that would allow a book to lie flat or lay flat. Is the difference that there is the act of *placing* something in a reclining position -or- if you - or something - is already in a reclining position - that's becomes a different situation?
Grrrrr. If anyone cares to offer a solution to this - and it has to be very clever - if it is going to stick in my head...let's hear it.
*** WOW - CJ was up bright and early and left a link that answers the questions - it's in the comment section. THANKS CJ!
OK - I looked it up the Roy *thing* - and I see why it doesn't stick in my brain - because they stuck indigo in between blue and violet (which is also purple) and end up with 7 colors - what's with that? Grrrrr. Unless they are talking about that color coding system on those little electronic things with stripes and a wire coming out of each end - Transistors? Resistors? Doodadistors?
ROYGBIV is an acronym for the sequence of hues commonly described as making up a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. There are several mnemonics that can be used for remembering this color sequence, such as the name "Roy G. Biv" or sentences such as "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain".
Yup - acronym - that's the word for a memory trick that I couldn't remember. Acro - what does that mean? Nym - what does that mean?
A memory trick is called a mnemonic. Recently I heard the difference between lie and lay and now can't remember what the difference is. But thanks to the magic of the Interwebs I found it plus a way of remembering. Lay vs Lie
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