Grammar was better then, than in the show.

I've only recently been introduced to "Mad Men" through watching the DVDs of past seasons, and I'm loving it. Although there are minor errors (coffee, not milk, was the "universal antidote" to drunkenness), I'm amazed at how well they have recreated the period of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

There is one ongoing mistake that drive me crazy, though: the constant misuse of lay/laying instead of the (correct) lie/lying. Confusing "lay" with "lie" has always occurred among the lower socioeconomic classes, but having lived through the 1950s and 1960s myself as a middle class New Yorker, I can tell you that just wasn't the case among the upper and middle classes of that period. People who said "I'm going to lay down" or "she's laying down" were easily and almost universally recognized as having bad grammar. And this mistake occurs constantly in Mad Men. I think I've heard the correct version ("I was lying down") only once in the show.

Since I listen to the (excellent) commentaries on the DVDs after watching every episode, I suspect the culprit is the writer, Matthew Weiner. He consistently uses "lay" when he means "lie" in his commentaries, which, since he is the writer, probably explains why that mistake is made in the lines of almost all the actors. Sometimes it really interferes with my "suspension of disbelief" necessary for believing I'm really watching that era.

I suppose most of today's audience won't notice this, since that particular grammatical mistake runs rampant through society today, but it bothers me because I'm older and I remember the way it was.