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I wrote a review of the movie Detroit in my blog and in the section What irked me about the film, I started in the following fashion: -

No doubt, Detroit is an engrossing flick, its greatest problem lied in the fact that it runs much longer than it should have.

A friend of mine pointed out that it should be lay instead of lied. I'm confused as to which form is correct and why? Thanks in advance for your help.

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  • ... its greatest problem..
    – Nagarajan Shanmuganathan
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 10:08
  • The lay chicken lay on the floor laying a egg, while the preacher chicken gave his sermon titled "The Lay of the Land".
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 13:44

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Your friend is right, the past of lie (as in to recline) is lay. You've used the past of lie (to tell an untruth).

This simple table might help you.

However, since you've used the present tense for the rest of the sentence, you may want to use 'lies' instead.

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    Bet you don't live in Aston or Sparkhill! You sound like a Solihull chap to me!
    – WS2
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 12:06
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    Thank you @millman97 for the table and the explanation. ^_^
    – Ankit Acharya
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 12:19
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    That figures. I'm an old Norfolk boy, from the deepest part of the county. And when I first went to grammar school in Norwich in 1954, before they taught me to speak proper, I thought the past-tense of "snow" was "snew", and of "drive" - "driv".
    – WS2
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 12:21
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    I like snew. Language is constantly evolving, maybe one day snew will make it into the dictionary XD
    – millman97
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 12:23
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    @millman97 My father used it until the day (almost) he died aged 99 yrs and 9 months in 2014.
    – WS2
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 18:27

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