Don’t look at me.

Dear Word Detective:  What is the origin of the word “lie”? — Cristy Clark.

That’s a good question, but you really ought to give us a “backstory,” some details about why you’re asking it.  You could say, for instance, “I was watching TV the other night and discovered that my favorite politician had been lying to us about taking bribes from the Indonesian pencil cartel, and I was so upset about the little schoolchildren being stuck with substandard pencils that I had to go lie on the bed.  Are these two kinds of “lie” related, and where does ‘lie’ come from, anyhow?”  See how that makes the question more vivid?  By the way, you can get bonus points for including cats in your tale, so if you don’t have a cat, just say the word and I’ll send you a few.

As you can probably infer from the little fable I concocted, there’s a bit of ambiguity in your question, because there are actually two kinds of “lie” in the English language.  There’s the “lie” meaning “untruth or falsehood,” which can be either a noun or a verb, but there’s also the verb “to lie,” meaning “to recline, to position oneself horizontally.”  The two “lies” are, fortunately, entirely separate English words, with completely different origins and histories.  I say “fortunately” because I just finished a column explaining (I hope) how the one word “present” can mean both “the time that is happening right now” and “a nice gift on Christmas morning” (as well as a bunch of other things).  It’s much easier when the two words look alike but have no tangled historical relationship to decode.

Both kinds of “lie” are, however, very old words that were handed down to us from Old English.  The “lie” meaning, as a noun, “the deliberate misrepresentation of facts in order to deceive” comes from an ancient Germanic root meaning “to tell a lie,” as does the verb “to lie,” which first appeared in Old English as “leogan.”  The key to “lying” is, of course, intent.  A “lie” is a blatant attempt to deceive the listener;  if I tell you that it’s snowing outside and it actually stopped an hour ago, I am probably not “lying.”  A “lie” usually must be deliberate and of some consequence.  “Your hair looks fabulous” may be a little “fib” (or “white lie”), but it doesn’t attain the level of malevolent dishonesty of an outright “lie.”

The other kind of “lie,” meaning “to recline horizontally,” exists primarily as a verb in modern English (although a noun form of “lie” in a related sense is used in golf and other sports to describe the position of the ball — how it “lies” — in relation to the course or playing field).  This verb “to lie” also comes from a very old Germanic root, in this case meaning “to lie down.”

One slightly sticky aspect of this “lie” comes from confusion with the separate transitive verb “to lay,” meaning “to put or set down” (“Lay down your gun and raise your hands”).  This confusion comes in part because the past tense of “to lie” is also “to lay.”  The best way to keep the two verbs straight is to remember that “to lay” is a transitive verb, one that must act on an object (“Lay an egg”), while “to lie” is intransitive and requires no object (“Go lie on the couch and I’ll get some aspirin”).

Be here when?

Dear Word Detective:  The Kung Fu Panda DVD has that old saying “Yesterday is history.  Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift.  That is why it is called the Present.  Open it and enjoy.”  That got me thinking about “present” (verb tense) and “present” (gift).  Is there any relationship between the two?  Perhaps in the dawn of the spoken word? — Don Wilkinson.

That’s a darn good question.  I must admit (to the probable mortification of everyone who knows me) that I had no idea, until a few minutes ago, of what “Kung Fu Panda” is.  (Thanks, Wikipedia!)  Then again, I also routinely fail to recognize major celebrities on TV, although I maintain that it’s not my fault.  C’mon, don’t Paris Hilton and Britney Spears and, um, whatshername, really all, you know, kinda look alike?  Anyway, if you liked that aphorism, you should swing by our house, where our motto is “Yesterday was a mystery, today is a muddle, and tomorrow is giving me a headache.”

There is indeed a relationship between “present” as a verb tense and “present” as a noun meaning “a gift.”  In fact, “present” can also be used as an adjective and adverb meaning “in the place being spoken of” (“Freddy was present for all the meetings with the FBI”) as well as an adjective or adverb meaning “existing or occurring now” (“He thought only of his present problems and refused to worry about his old age”).  But wait, there’s more!  “Present” (pronounced only in this case with a long “e” in the first syllable and the stress on the second) is also a verb meaning “to show or place before” (“May I present the star of Quack, Len the Duck”).  “Present” is a very versatile, if sometimes confusing, word.

It all started with the Latin adjective “praesens,” which means “being here now,” formed from roots meaning roughly “to be before one,” in the sense of standing in front of someone.  All the meanings of “present” we use today involve either one or both of these root senses of “right here” and “right now.”

The noun “present,” meaning “the period of time that is now occurring,” first appeared in English in the early 13th century, and gave us the “present” verb tense, in which the action of the verb is occurring right now.  This noun “present” originally also had a number of other forms, all now obsolete, which referred to something “present,” on the scene, at a particular time.  As I said, the “here” and “now” senses of “present” can be difficult to untangle.  “Present” as an adjective and adverb appeared in the early 14th century meaning both “right here” and “at this time.”

This brings us to the verb form of “present,” which appeared in English around 1300 with the meaning “to bring or place before someone,” as in a formal introduction (“He … led me into his hut … and presented me before his wife, as if she had been the Queen and I a duke,” Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886).  This verb “to present” could, however, cover the offering of things as well as people “placed in front of” the recipient, and so “to present” also meant “to give as a gift or prize.”  This gave us the use of “present” as a noun meaning “a gift given to another.”

So the “present” meaning “right now” and the “present” meaning “gift” are actually the same word.  But, notwithstanding Panda wisdom, that’s not “why” we call today “the present,” although there have been some days lately that I would cheerfully return for exchange.