Re: YAEDT? Syntax in dialects of English (was: Of accents & dialects (was: Azurian phonology)

Eugene Oh wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 3:22 PM, Elliott Lash <erelion12@...> wrote:
>
>> Ray's observation that it is common enough down south accords with my
>> observations. I live in Cambridge and although I know some northerners, most
>> of my friends and acquaintances are southern - Hertfordshire, Isle of White,
>> Surrey, Somerset, London, Essex - etc. I've caught all of them saying 'I was
>> sat' and 'I was stood'. Never did here 'I was laid' - although I did ask one
>> of my friends about it a few weeks ago and he says that he'd never heard it
>> either.
>>
>> -Elliott
>
> Probably because "I was laid" has slang associations with it. ;)
That's true! I've heard "I was laid" = 'I was lying' only in Newport,
South Wales, and the surrounding area. Also there it is IME always
pronounced colloquially as 'I was led' - I even found it written that
way by school kids more than once when I was teaching there.

I've never come across this elsewhere. Indeed, here "I was laying" is
the usual form for standard English "I was lying" - I believe this use
of "lay" for both the transitive verb (standard English) and the
intransitive (SE 'lie') is common in very many areas. This leads me to
suspect that if the very common colloquial British "I was sat" & "I was
stood" occurred also with lying down one would have "I was lain". Does
it occur?

--
Ray
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Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
[William of Ockham]

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