In this story, villagers call upon Ananse to use his cleverness to capture a python that has been terrorizing them. Ananse pretends to befriend Python, eventually convincing him to stretch himself out on a log (and even allowing himself to be tied to it) to be measured. Here's J's depiction of Ananse tying Python to the log.
Zoo Boy's drawing of Ananse luring Python out of his burrow to eat mashed yams, eggs, and coconut oil.
My drawing, same scene as J's. I find it interesting that we all chose to draw Python laying in the same direction.(By the way, we had a bit of a debate -- who knows which is correct, "lying" or "laying" -- my argument was that if you're "lying" you're not telling the truth, but if you're "laying" you are prone. Or, I suppose, producing an egg....in any case, is "lying' also correct? Help me out here, people!)
3 comments:
Hi Shelley,
The word you're looking for here is "lying". "Laying" is an active verb, meaning you have to have a direct object to actively lay down- e.g., "lay the baby down" (or lay an egg) or whatever.
If the python was just lying there on the ground, then "lying" is the correct word.
However, if someone was holding the python and decided to lay the snake down, then you would use lay: "Hey, I'm going to lay this snake down on the ground."
Here's a sentence illustrating correct use of both "lay" and "lie":
"Now that I've laid him down, the snake is lying on the ground."
By the same token, the common expression "I'm so tired, I'm going to go lay down" should correctly be "I'm so tired, I'm going to go lie down" (because there is no direct object). Or if you absolutely wanted to use "lay", you could say "I'm going to lay this tired old body down".
http://www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com/articles/article/992333/8992.htm
OK, enough grammar lesson for the day! Love the blog...keep 'em coming!
Katie, thank you SOOO much for clearing that up for me!!! :)
Of course, when I told J, he said "I knew that." LOL
You're most welcome...and why am I not surprised J already knew that? LOL
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