The New York Times recently quit using the apostrophe with an abbreviation (eg, DVDs) though I had always considered its use as virtually mandatory, but changes taking place in the media and popular culture overwhelm my traditional understanding of usage in the Mother Tongue

For instance the stylebook for our local Fourth Estate, The Victorville, CA Daily Press, evidently allows for the interchange of "lay" and "lie," where more than once we have noted a usage like, "...a woman laying beside the road..."

While the traditional scholar might anticipate the imminent arrest of the woman on grounds of indecent exposure, the new usage is no doubt meant to allay the possible assumption that she is instead seated curbside using a cellphone to spread rumors and untruths

Eg, lying beside the highway

In the Press' defense, however, to lay is doubtless becoming widespread as we have also noted the occasional laying even in AP stories. By coincidence in today's Press , "The victim had drank a large amount of alcohol...." Perhaps the woman was laying there because she had drank so much, suggesting another linguistic twist in a parallel vein (no puns intended)

dalehileman