Comments on: Common Writing Mistakes: Creative Writing Tips for Beginners https://writers.com/common-writing-mistakes Your voice is a gift. Share it. Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:58:07 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Jane Alexander https://writers.com/common-writing-mistakes#comment-43734 Sun, 11 Dec 2022 16:41:39 +0000 http://writers.com/?p=8372#comment-43734 Yes but the past tense of ‘lay’ is actually ‘laid’, as stated.
For example:
Present tense – ‘I lay the table with the best silverware’ , ‘I lay a wreath on the coffin’.
Past tense – ‘I laid the table with the best silverware’, ‘I laid a wreath on the coffin’.

]]> By: Pauline Nelson https://writers.com/common-writing-mistakes#comment-268 Sat, 31 Oct 2020 14:27:02 +0000 http://writers.com/?p=8372#comment-268 The past tense of lie is lay, not laid.

“The cat lay down on the sofa.”

The past perfect tense would be “The cat had lain down on the sofa.”

I fully expect that in a hundred years all these common misuses of ‘laid’ will become accepted as standard usage, but at the moment some are still incorrect.

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