Doris, you have confused the past tense with the passive voice, and the intransitive "lie" with the transitive "lay".
Admittedly, the latter is a rather picky grammatical rule that ignores how many people actually speak.
But, technically, tomorrow you will lie down for a nap, and yesterday you lay down for a nap.
To remember this, think of the old prayer ("Now I lay me down to sleep..."). Lay is transitive, so the object ("me") has been added. Otherwise it would have to be something like "Now I lie down to sleep".
But the challenge was to find the passive voice (not the past tense).
Amanda got it.
Curtis, your passive construction is tricky. You mean to say: "They were seen lying in the grass." But in that case "seen" is passive, not lying (which is actually the present participle)!
4 comments:
Active - I will lay down in the afternoon for a quick nap.
Passive - I laid down in the afternoon for a quick nap.
Active-She will lay the egg soon.
Passive-Eggs would be laid by her.
A-
I will lay the groundwork for my career this year.
P-
They were seen laying in the grass.
Doris, you have confused the past tense with the passive voice, and the intransitive "lie" with the transitive "lay".
Admittedly, the latter is a rather picky grammatical rule that ignores how many people actually speak.
But, technically, tomorrow you will lie down for a nap, and yesterday you lay down for a nap.
To remember this, think of the old prayer ("Now I lay me down to sleep..."). Lay is transitive, so the object ("me") has been added. Otherwise it would have to be something like "Now I lie down to sleep".
Here's a link that might help:
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/lay-vs-lie
But the challenge was to find the passive voice (not the past tense).
Amanda got it.
Curtis, your passive construction is tricky.
You mean to say: "They were seen lying in the grass."
But in that case "seen" is passive, not lying (which is actually the present participle)!
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