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I’ve seen these two sentences written in two different books:

  1. Then the whole army advanced against the three who were laying in wait for it calmly. (Albanian Folktales and Legends by Robert Elsie)

  2. Many times in the past we had faced attacks from our enemies, but lying in wait of the mightiest army of the world had ever known was a different matter. (The Siege by Ismaïl Kadaré translated by David Bellos)

Shouldn’t it be ‘lying in wait for’? And not ‘lying in wait of’ or ‘laying in wait for’?

Mónica Q
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  • Does this answer your question? – tchrist Jan 17 '23 at 14:17
  • Ismaïl Kadaré isn't a native Anglophone, so take no notice of the non-standard preposition usage there. That *laying / lying* distinction is just meaningless fodder for pedants. – FumbleFingers Jul 09 '23 at 20:49
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    @FumbleFingers The distinction is a causative one: laying something makes it lie just like raising something makes it rise and felling a tree makes it fall. – tchrist Jul 09 '23 at 20:56
  • @tchrist: I'm sure every native Anglophone knows you can only *lay bricks, not lie* them, so you won't find any written instance of people explaining *how to lie bricks*. But an awful lot of people have been perfectly happy to talk about *laying in wait* (*and* get published! :). I can live with that. – FumbleFingers Jul 09 '23 at 21:06
  • @FumbleFingers I should have indicated I was referring to the English translation of renowed scholar David Bellos. Thank you. – Mónica Q Jul 09 '23 at 21:26
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    @MónicaQ: Oh. Well that means there's a translator involved. And that translator clearly doesn't know English very well - lots of native Anglophones either don't know or don't care about *laying in wait, but they all know you lie in wait for* your victim, not *of* him. I don't mind defending native Anglophones who "wrongly" use *lay, but if someone is actually getting paid* to do translation work, I don't think they should get away with that sort of thing! :) – FumbleFingers Jul 10 '23 at 00:40
  • lying in wait for someone means to remain hidden while waiting to ambush someone. lying in wait of someone could be understood to mean "to be hunkered down, awaiting an assault by someone". – TimR Aug 11 '23 at 21:25

2 Answers2

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Garner's Modern English Usage (2016) says "laying" is a mistake:

Another common mistake is 'laying in wait' for 'lying in wait' quote

Another common mistake is laying in wait for lying in wait -- e.g.:

  • "Police say several armed assailants may have been laying [read lying] in wait at East 39th Street and Park Avenue." Erica Franklin, "14 Unsolved Murders Are Possibly Tied to Drug Sales," Indianapolis Star, 11 Oct. 1994, at A1.
  • "Dunlap has been accused of laying [read lying] in wait until closing time at the Chuck E Cheese restaurant, then systematically shooting the five employees still on duty," Ginny McKibben, "Ex-Friend Links Dunlap to Burger King Robbery." Denver Post, 1 Apr. 1995, at B4.
    Garner's Modern English Usage - 2016

ngram comparing "lying in wait for" to "laying in wait for"

ngram comparing "lying in wait of" to "laying in wait of"

"Lying in wait for" is the correct form, "lying in wait of" is at best rare nowadays and archaic, if not yet obsolete.

Lying in wait for

Laying in wait for

lying in wait of

laying in wait of

LPH
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    The Corpus of Contemporary American English shows 308 instances of lying in wait compared to just 29 instances of laying in wait. This makes more sense when you consider that COCA also includes various "non-curated" sources of live speech. – tchrist Jan 17 '23 at 14:49
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    Just because Google Books has found examples of "lying in wait of" doesn't make it correct; it merely shows it's been used. It's an order of magnitude less than "for", even in its apparent heyday. – Andrew Leach Jan 17 '23 at 15:33
  • @AndrewLeach It is very rare and apparently archaic, but that does not mean it should be called incorrect, does it? – LPH Jan 17 '23 at 15:57
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    It might be called incorrect if it's so archaic as to be [practically] obsolete. And the recent uptick in of may be due to incorrect translation from foreign languages. – Andrew Leach Jan 17 '23 at 16:48
  • @AndrewLeach I think it is due instead to modern criticism relative to religious texts. – LPH Jan 17 '23 at 16:52
  • @LPH: eh? What do religious texts have to do with the price of tea in China? – Marthaª Jan 17 '23 at 23:34
  • @Marthaª What do you mean by that? I can't find this text you seem to be referring to in the Google search. – LPH Jan 17 '23 at 23:49
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    @LPH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_that_got_to_do_with_the...%3F -- "What have religious texts to do with this or anything else?" – Andrew Leach Jan 18 '23 at 09:47
  • @AndrewLeach I don't think it's irrelevant ; in fact quite a number of these texts do appear in the research and it is well known that religious language is full of archaic forms ; here is for instance the SOED definition of "archaic": "no longer in ordinary use though retained by individuals or for special purposes (e.g. poetical, liturgical)". – LPH Jan 18 '23 at 10:09
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    I agree with @AndrewLeach here. It's misleading to suggest that preposition *of* is "valid" in a context like this. It had little currency even two centuries ago, and I'd have thought virtually every "current" instance would be citing historical texts. – FumbleFingers Jan 18 '23 at 14:05
  • @FumbleFingers I changed the contested text; don't hesitate to criticize the new version if needed. – LPH Jan 18 '23 at 15:01
  • ty for acknowledgment. I didn't intentionally withhold an upvote because of that point, but presumably making the comment distracted me. Anyway, I've upvoted now (the relevant amendment is impeccable, imho! :) – FumbleFingers Jan 18 '23 at 15:09
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There are three verbs:

lie
lay (past tense)
lain (past participle) means to be or to stay at rest

lay
laid (past tense)
laid (past tense) means to put or set down

lie
lied ( past tense)
lied ( past participle) as used in "tell a lie"

In your case "laying in wait for" is more appropriate.

KillingTime
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Ahmed Nadeem Faiz
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