We are about a week out from Valentine’s Day, and there’s one particular L-word on everybody’s mind: Love. But as common and confusing as love is, it is not our focus today. No, today we are once again discussing the nuances of the English language, and how to avoid its many pitfalls. Surprise!
I normally don’t make themed posts, but it just so happens that many of the most easily mixed- up words in English start with ‘L’, so that is what we’ll be focusing on in this article. Without further ado, here is my Valentine’s Day list of commonly confused pairs of ‘L’ words, and how to use them.
Lead vs Led
Most of the confusion between these words is derived from the fact that lead actually has many meanings. Depending on the context, it can be a noun, an adjective, or a verb.
In its noun form, it can refer to the 82nd element on the periodic table (‘The patient suffered from lead poisoning.’), a position of advantage or control (‘Today, many separate companies are vying for the lead in the race to build the world’s fastest quantum computer.’), or a leash for an animal (‘Training a dog to walk with a lead can start as early as 4-6 weeks old.’)
In its verb form, it can mean to guide in advance of something (‘Perhaps surprisingly, Croatia currently leads the world in brain cancer treatment outcomes’) or to control the operation or activity of something (‘They lead a research team investigating the impact of LSD on the human brain’).
Lead has even more nuances than just those listed here; these are only the most common and relevant. The important point is the relationship between lead and led. Led, when spelled only with the ‘e’, is the past tense of the verb form of lead. For example, ‘Last year, they led a research team investigating the impact of LSD on the human brain’. This is the only time these words are related. Led is never used to replace lead in noun form.
Lay vs Lie vs Laid vs Lain
The difficulty with this set of four words is that unlike lead vs lead, there is actually quite a lot of overlap in meaning, making the usage distinction particularly difficult to navigate. Don’t worry, we’ll go through them one by one with examples to explain.
Lay and lie both have similar present tense usages; however, they have slightly different meanings. Lay means to put something down, but only when the subject is acting on the object. Example: “I lay the book on the table”. In this scenario, I (the subject) act on the book (the object).
Lie also refers to the action of putting or setting down, only this time, the subject itself is performing the action, rather than acting on something else. Example: ‘I lie down in my bed.’ I (the subject) act only on myself and not the bed (the object). This also works for inanimate objects. Example: ‘The book lies on the table.’ This is like the previous example, but because the book is now the subject instead of the object, we use lie instead of lay. Lie is also to mean being deceitful, but this usage has no overlap with the other words here.
Lay is also the past tense of lie. Example: ‘Last night, I lay in bed, unable to sleep;. This can be incredibly confusing, but to stay oriented all you must do is keep track of the tense and the relationship between the subject and the action. Additionally, lay also has a moderately common use as a noun, meaning the general appearance of an area. It’s most frequently used in the context of the phrase ‘the lay of the land’. Like the noun usage of lie, however, this has no connection to the other words in this section.
With that in mind, laid is the past tense of lay. Example: ‘Last night, I laid the book on the table’. As an extra bit of complexity though, laid is also the past participle form of lay. The past participle is the form of a verb that is used in forming perfect and passive tenses. Example: ‘The truth had been laid bare’. Finally, just as laid is the past particle form of lay, lain is the past participle form of lain. Example: ‘The emperor’s tomb had lain unopened for many centuries’.
That is a lot of information for a single post, but there are still a few common confused groups of L-words, so there will likely be a part two that actually falls on Valentine’s Day. In the meantime, learn these words, their usages, and their nuances to strengthen your English writing skills, and produce better, more comprehensible work. To learn more about how to avoid common mistakes when writing in English, contact me.