Grammar Moses: Do you lay like a rug? Chapter and verse on lay/lie

Constant reader Ted "Dictionary Man" Utchen writes: "On Page 2 of the Dec. 5 Daily Herald, we see a story headlined, 'Good boy: Sully the service dog visits Bush's casket.' But we believe that Sully is considerably upset because in the next-to-last column we read a sentence, 'Sully the dog achieved worldwide fame after a Bush family spokesman tweeted a photo of Sully LAYING by Bush's flag-draped casket with the caption: "Mission completed."'"

I might have had a tiny aneurysm punctuating that headline within a caption within a quotation.

As a sentient being, Sully indeed can lie down (as a good boy should under these circumstances.) So he was lying on the floor.

I tackled the subject of the uses of and distinctions between "lay" and "lie" (and I'm not lying to you) 26 months ago. I assume not all of you laminate and cross-reference all of my columns or have eidetic memories, so what follows will be a bit of a refresher:

First, "to lie" is an intransitive verb, meaning it doesn't take a direct object. "To lay" always does. One lies on the couch. One lays his clothes on the elliptical machine, because that's the primary purpose of elliptical machines.

When someone tells Sully to "lay" down, he is misspeaking. Sully is smart enough not to respond to such a command.

If you tell your bridge partner to "lay" down, you're telling her to put her cards on the table, not take a nap. Come to think of it, if Sully were one of those poker-playing dogs, he could "lay down" his cards.

Now, to conjugate:

Lay (present tense): I "lay" the magazine on the table.

Lie (present tense): I "lie" on the floor when my back is sore.

Lay (past tense): I "laid" the magazine on the table right after my wife cleaned it.

Lie (past tense): I "lay" on the floor until the spasms subsided.

Lay (past participle): Why have you laid that stupid magazine on the table I just dusted, jerk?

Lie (past participle): I "have lain" on the floor for three days now. Won't someone help me up or at least feed me?

Lay (present participle): I am not laying any more reading material on the recycling pile until this blows over.

Lie (present participle): I am lying on the couch for a couple days. It's softer than the floor, at least.

Whose is it?

Angelo Polvere sent me a photo with a question about its caption: Is it "'associate of Donald Trump's' as printed or 'associate of Donald Trump'?"

Would that it were an easy question to answer. Grammar junkies argue about this all the time.

The topic is double possessives.

The Associated Press Stylebook (in my line of work, it's more dog-eared than a Bible) carries this rule:

"Two conditions must apply for a double possessive to occur: The word after 'of' must refer to an animate object (in this case, Donald Trump); and the word before 'of' must involve only a portion of the animate object's possessions."

An associate is just one of Trump's billions of possessions.

So "an associate of Trump's" fits the bill.

So, what sorts of phrases don't work?

"He is a patron of the theater's" does not work, because a theater is inanimate.

The stylebook also offers the example "The friends of John Adams mourned his death" to point out that all of his friends mourned him, not just a portion, so there is no double possessive.

I would add that on the occasion of his death, John Adams no longer was animate.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.