Now I lay me down to sleep.....

Grammar 101: to lie is an intransitive verb - i.e. it doesn't take a direct object - "lay" is the past of this verb.
To lay is a transitive verb which means it requires a direct object: its past and past participle are both "laid".
What brought this on, do you ask? The sight of a printed notice which failed to differentiate between the two: unfortunately I didn't have a black marker pen to hand, so I took a photo instead.

Exhibit A

and Exhibit B: what is actually being forbidden, if you take the sign literally.

 

 Added Sept. 2020

Reassure me, surely the irregular past form of "to lie" hasn't been changed and I didn't get the memo?

This caption accompanied a photo taken at the funeral of H.W. Bush on the BBC website.

"In the past few days, however, old wounds seem to have been mended. Mr Trump welcomed the family to the Blair House, across the street from the White House, and paid his respects as the elder Bush laid in state at the US Capitol."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46449637

 

Instructions: clear as mud

I had a new dress for Christmas: I ordered it online at it came by post. When I unpacked it there was a little note saying that it would need to be pressed before I wore it. There was also a helpful (not) translation of this information into French - which told me that it would have "besoin pressant" before being worn....... this is a French expression which means an urgent need for the toilet. Woops!
Moving along swiftly, Santa brought me a cute novelty salt and pepper set. The pieces had to be taken apart to be filled and then pushed firmly back together before use - to avoid getting the entire contents dumped on your turkey. Unfortunately the instructions had been translated from Chinese (or similar) and  in fact said the very opposite: "hardly push" as opposed to "push hard". I know that hardly looks as if it should be the adverb formed from the adjective hard, but of course it isn't. In French hardly is à peine.

Wishing you a very Dictionary Christmas

My pupils have been hard at work on Christmas traditions from around the world: amongst the many gems we have learned about calendars and candles "of the front": this is an epic fail caused by a spelling mistake in the original French - Advent is "l'Avent" NOT "l'Avant"!
Apparently every house in  Germany  has "stares" (rather than stars) as Christmas decorations and  in Canada they have Christmas "day nurseries" : nativity cribs - in French it's the same word: "une crèche".  Swedes, I am reliably informed, send "maps" to family and friends - rather than the more traditional Christams cards.
However, the most suprising discovery was that Americans decorate the outside of their houses with garlands and bollocks. I wonder whose?

Why and how have the murderous barbarians responsible for so many deaths become "DAESH", and what does it mean?

If you like to understand the meaning before you use a new word, here is an excellent explanation of the meaning and significance of this word by an Arab language expert called Alice Guthrie.

https://www.freewordcentre.com/blog/2015/02/daesh-isis-media-alice-guthrie/


Thank you Alice - I will be taking every opportunity to use it.

An unhealthy start to the school year

Just received by email  from the pupils at the local catering college which is called Les Grippeaux, a message informing us that the restaurant is now open and
 "You can view the days of opening and menus on the influenza school site."
Presumably  the message has been through a machine translator which has translated the "grippe" of the name ... don't these pupils ever re-read anything and think before pressing "send"?

Exam candidates fail to cope!

The exam season is upon us and this year's would-be bacheliers have taken their English paper, based on an extract from the novel Atonement. One of the questions asked how the character "was coping" with the situation and this has caused howls of protest from candidates indignant that they should be expected to know this word. I actually agree with them on this point: the paper is supposed to be testing their comprehension of the text, not of the questions being asked, and I really think it would have been wise to phrase the question differently.
What, however, appalls me, is that one of the many candidates who has taken to Twitter to complain has posted a screen shot from an online dictionary.

Well no wonder he doesn't understand!
A "chaperon" is (amongst other things) a term used in building as in a"coping stone".
After 13 years of schooling (including English lessons for at least half of that time) this chap still hasn't learned the precautions necessary when looking a word up in the dictionary - such as knowing whether you are looking for a noun or a verb!

Nazi weight loss

The poor lad was actually there when I read his work - I have a feeling that the expression on my face when I realised what he'd done will remind him to double check his meanings in the future:
 "In the film The Great Dictator" Chaplin mocks the Nazi diet."

This one is interesting as Larousse gives nine different definitions  (and consequent possible translations) for the word "regime".... some of which were new even to me. However, of course the irony is that in this particular context we just use the same word as, of course, we borrowed it from the French in the first place.