Books That Lay Eggs

Someone (author, editor, publisher, or all of the above) really laid an egg with the title of this book.

The verb lay is a transitive verb. Transitive verbs require two arguments: a subject and a direct object. Which leaves me wondering, what did the dead lay?

And more importantly, how?

In addition to requiring a particular number of arguments, different verb types also maintain different semantic restrictions.

In linguistics, these restrictions are monitored by what are known as theta roles (which equate to the number of arguments required by the verb). Every verb is encoded with a minimum of one theta role and a maximum of three. Theta roles are filled by words or phrases that carry certain thematic relations. Thematic relations being the semantic relation between an argument and its predicate (verb).

The verb lay mandatorily has two theta roles to fill, which are most commonly filled by words or phrases with the thematic relations agent and theme. An agent is an initiator or doer of an action. A theme is an entity that undergoes an action, is experienced or is perceived.

By the thematic role definition, the verb lay requires an animate subject because an inanimate subject cannot initiate an action. So I pose the question again, how can the dead lay? Dead are inanimate by definition; they are not capable of initiating an action.

If, by any chance, the title's use of lay is as the past tense of the verb lie it still doesn't jibe semantically...unless, of course, you believe in the ability of the dead to rise.

Click here for more on the distinction between "lay vs. lie".

Language Peeves - "Went Missing"

A reader recently commented that it really bothers him when news headlines report a missing person by using the phrase "went missing" instead of "is missing."

In regards to this language peeve, the difference between "went missing" and "is missing" is a bit more involved than one might initially think...not only are the verbs in the phrases different, the verb type and tense are different as well. These verbal differences result in semantic differences, and the choice of using one phrase rather than the other may or may not be intentional.

Went is the past tense form of the verb to go. To go is an action verb.

Is is a present tense form of the verb to be. To be is a verb of being that is considered a linking verb.

Semantically, action verbs imply that choice is involved because people choose their actions, whereas linking verbs simply form an association between a subject and its complement. So, saying that a person "went missing" implies that that person chose to go missing and saying a person "is missing" implies that there was not a choice and that whatever happened was against that person's will. Additionally, because went is past tense, "went missing" leaves open the possibility that the person is no longer missing.

The choice of using one phrase rather than the other may be intentional if the possibility exists that the missing person is on the lam or it could just be that a copywriter was lazy and didn't give much thought to the semantics of the chosen verb.