Your v. You're, & Lay v. Lie
English, with its long history of Germanic, Latin, French entanglements, can get a wee bit confusing. With its (it's) fancy their, there, they're, and who versus whom, and affect/effect, and on and on, we have to focus to get it sorted. If you Google "Commonly Confused Words," the lists are many.
So let's make some of this a little less daunting, yes? Yes!
You are your?
You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with you're mad ninja driving skills. 1
Looks good? I hope not. This sentence may have a cool car, but the breaks are screeching at you're.
So what you're (or your??) saying is...
Your (without apostrophe R-E) is a possessive form, while You're (WITH apostrophe R-E) is a contraction: you are.
Your Honda glows like the sun. You're using it to flash fry vampires in San Francisco.
The subject in the first sentence (You) owns a Honda (the object), so we want the possessive form: Your. The Honda belongs to the subject.
The subject in the second sentence (You again) is doing something (You are verb-ing), so snag the contraction: You're (you are).
Looking behind to get ahead!
Glancing back at the initial sentence, we can see that the subject (You) possesses the object (mad ninja driving skills). Currently, we have "you are mad ninja driving skills," which isn't impossible, but is certainly tricky.
In a logical world, we want to own our skills: You have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills.
That's a happy sentence!
And in added fun...
Yore is a homophone of your/you're, so let's give it a hat tip. Yore means from times past, former days, and is used in a kind of nostalgic tone. When we're missing the simpler days, we're pining for the days of yore.
The knights of yore are your best story element, and if I may say so, you're representing them splendidly!
Dictionary.com makes the added distinction that Yore is strictly a literary word, so you're not likely to come across it naturally in conversational English...which is unfortunate, because we could all use a little archaism to brighten up an otherwise uniform day. :)
Onward!
To the dubious differences of Lay versus Lie.
*Le sigh* This one is mega-tricky--but we shall persevere! Let's start one slice at a time: what's a direct object?
Subject did what to whom?
As sentence structure grammar goes, direct objects are with the easier stuff, like subjects and verbs. A direct object will follow a transitive verb (an action verb) and is the thing affected by the action.
The UV floodlights zapped the vampires.
There's a handy trick to finding your direct object and this is how it goes: The subject did what to whom?
The whom is your direct object.
Example:
The UV floodlights zapped whom? They zapped the vampires. So, "the vampires" is the direct object because it is on the receiving end of the verb's action.
Walk it off, walk it off.
Fridays are great for tricky questions, so let's dive in, present tense style: Lay has a direct object and Lie does not.
They lay down the vampire law of San Francisco. (Direct object = vampire law. They are laying downwhat? They are laying down the vampire law.)
They lie down after a hard day's work. (No direct object)
And then we went into the past and all was--ugh...I got this.
The past tense of Lie...is Lay.
The past tense of Lay...is Laid.
Keep that straight and you're golden.
Rule 1: Present tense Lay has a Direct Object.
Rule 2: Past tense of Lie (no D.O.) is Lay. Past tense of Lay (has D.O.) is Laid.
After fighting vampires with her boyfriend's Honda, Abby Normal lay down to take snooze. (Past tense, no direct object)
Abby Normal laid the keys on the table. (Past tense, direct object = the keys)
And everyone had a peaceful night in San Francisco...
1 "You have great hair and a car that is most fly, and you have just saved me with your mad ninja driving skills[...]" Christopher Moore, You Suck: A Love Story, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007.
Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips: Lay versus Lie
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/directobject.htm
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/transitiveverb.htm
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