IT STARTED with my mother. I learned at an early age that when women ask a question, it’s really a challenge, daring you to prove them wrong.

So I answer with trepidation the question: “Why do many people use the transitive verb ‘lay’ intransitively, as in ‘I was laid down’,” (Letters, March 24). Well, it’s because they confuse things. People do. I confuse things all the time. Happily, I have helpful friends to put me right with hints such as: “You’re in the wrong lane! You don’t listen!”

Language is full of pitfalls and confusing signs. It’s like driving in York. Anorexia, begging the question, candid, disgusted, painful, presently, sophisticated; all words and expressions that have changed their meanings over the years. The list is endless. This is confusing for many people, but interesting for some.

Curiously, this quite natural and inevitable phenomenon drives a few people slightly bonkers. Here we have a reader (a southerner, I am relieved to learn) who, when asked to “lay down”, believes that a perfectly rational native speaker wishes her to produce an egg.

Dear lady, consult your physician immediately.

William Dixon Smith YASGA*, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.

*York Against the Superfluous Genitive Apostrophe