Lie of the Land

By now, just about everyone has heard about Bush's candid remarks caught accidentally (one just has to wonder, though) on tape during a G-8 luncheon:

Mic picks up Bush: 'get Hezbollah to stop this s***'

People seem to be really focused in on the "s" word, too--adults never really outgrow their potty-talk fantasies do they?

But here's something I just had to check out due to the obviously unintended double entendre:

Blair: "I don’t know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral."

In this spirited discussion on the UK site The Phrase Finder we discover that 'The lie of the land' means 'the way the land lies' which is grammatically correct. 'The lay of the land' is found in usage too, although 'the way the land lays' is grammatically incorrect. It's a good example of the confusion between the two verbs.

and

From www.bartleby.com: "lie of the land, lay of the land". Both locutions are Standard, meaning "the way things are literally or figuratively positioned with respect to other things," as in "As soon as we get a look at the lie [lay] of the land, we'll decide what to do next."

I also found yet another UK site which definitely convinces me that Blair was speaking in some kind of secret code :)

This site Lie of the Land: The Secret Life of Maps poses some very strange questions like "Do you believe in maps?" or "Do maps lead or mislead?" and "Do maps unite or divide?"

Well, do they???