LAY THE TABLE OR MAKE THE TABLE?

[san2612]

please help me with the following question.
1. Dinner will be ready soon. Can you please ………..the table?
A settle B lay C make D put
I chose C,make but the answer is B.lay. WHy B is better than C?

 

[Barb_D]

This is just one of those phrases you have to learn. In the US, we "set" the table, instead of "laying" it. It means to put the dishes and silver on, etc.

 

[konungursvia]

We can make a table, but that involves cutting wood, and putting it together in the shape of a flat surface with 3 or more legs.

 

[5jj]

However, we do make the bed - arrange the bedclothes in an orderly fashion ready to sleep in again.

 

[vil]

May I say in this instance "spread the table"?

V.

 

[bhaisahab]

May I say in this instance "spread the table"?

V.

No, we lay or set the table.

 

[vil]

Would you be kind enough tell me who use the mentioned bellow connotations of the term in question?

Spread the table = to prepare (a table) for eating; set. / to arrange (food or a meal) on a table

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/spread-betting#ixzz1NFw4aIZU

Spread the table = to arrange tableware upon (a table) in preparation for a meal: lay1, set1.
[FONT=&quot]
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/spread-betting#ixzz1NFwWVVSO[/FONT]

 

[bhaisahab]

Would you be kind enough tell me who use the mentioned bellow connotations of the term in question?

Spread the table = to prepare (a table) for eating; set. / to arrange (food or a meal) on a table

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/spread-betting#ixzz1NFw4aIZU

Spread the table = to arrange tableware upon (a table) in preparation for a meal: lay1, set1.
[FONT=&quot]
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/spread-betting#ixzz1NFwWVVSO[/FONT]

I've never heard "spread the table".

 

[riquecohen]

I've never heard "spread the table".

Nor have I, on the other side of the Atlantic.

 

[Route21]

Both of Vil's links, from Answers.com, appear to refer to the same set of definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary:

Item 6 (v tr.)

1. To prepare (a table) for eating; set.
2. To arrange (food or a meal) on a table.

Whilst I have never heard it used in this way, from a BrE point of view, there is also, in the same link, a reference to the noun "spread", which is defined as:
​

5. Informal. An abundant meal laid out on a table.

Now this I have heard in the context of: "They laid on a spread fit for a king".

Regards
R21

PS This is the second time today that definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary appear to have come into question - see https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/147466-nothing-kind.html

​

 

[Tdol]

I haven't heard spread the table used either.

 

[konungursvia]

I've never heard "spread the table".

Nor have I.

 

[BobK]

Me neither - 'lay' or 'set'; But 'spread' would work as a direct object: 'He spread all the silver on the table'; it might even be acceptable - :-? - the other way round: 'He spread the table with all the silver'. I know a native speaker who did a Saturday job in Burger King, and at work they used the term 'Put the table' - which I'd never heard before or since. As his manager was a Latina I guessed there was some L1 interference (from poner la mesa). And possibly that influence was industry wide, regardless of his manager, if there is a strong Hispanic influence in fast-food outlets.

b

 

[birdeen's call]

"Spread the table" seems to be an archaic expression, although dictionaries do not call it that. MW says that this meaning of "spread" is archaic: cover completely. But the meaning prepare for dining is not marked as such.

Nevertheless, COCA only has one hit for "spread the table" and COHA has 21 (all of them more than sixty years old).

No service was required of them on the Sabbath, further than to spread the table, and to attend it

Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents... by Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, 1835

My mother spread the table with a laundered white cloth and put out her silver.

The writer in the family, Literary Cavalcade, Vol. 52, Iss. 5; pg. 22, 7 pgs, 2000