alt Hacker NewsQuestion about English for natives: "[...] have lagged behind [..]" would be the grammatically correct version of the heading, I think. Or is "to lag" without "behind" actually a correct use? Is it merely headline-speak, news-speak, to make headlines shorter and convey more information in fewer words?
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Lag as a verb does imply following behind, but it can also be a noun, such as in "a time lag".
Adding behind after lag as a verb is more of a "because it sounds good", perhaps as a subconscious way to emphasize the verb, but it isn't a grammatical requirement at all.
Leaving it off is almost certainly more to keep the headline short than anything else.
Both versions are grammatically correct. "Lagged behind" is common for everyday speech, while using "lagged" as a direct verb is a standard, formal way to describe data gaps in business or news. So yes, the headline uses just "lagged" to save space.
I'm not a native, but lived in the US for a quarter century. I think you're correct that that "lagged behind" is the correct version, but if you replaced "lagged" with "trailed" it would also be correct without the "behind". Language is very fluid and always evolving, so using "lagged" as one would previously have used "trailed" may soon be considered correct usage.
Note also that these aren't really questions of grammar (syntax) but meaning (semantics). Does "lagged" mean the same thing as "trailed" in this kind of construction? It didn't some decades ago, but maybe it does today. Or will tomorrow.
"Lagged" alone is valid, but it is slightly less clear. Because, while it would be atypical, "X lagged Y" could be read to mean that X caused Y to lag. "X lagged behind Y" removes that ambiguity.
It is correct, if somewhat uncommon in daily use. I published an article awhile ago and the editor revised it similarly.
lag is a verb meaning "to fail to keep up" so IMO, lagging behind is redundant. It is not uncommon to hear, but strictly unnecessary.
In my western US dialect, it is abnormal to use it as a subject-verb-object (SVO) construct. I have to guess at intent.
For me, there are three idiomatic forms:
1. Using "lag behind" gives a target/reference as a prepositional relationship, not as an object of the verb "to lag".
2. Using "caused to lag" allows one to specify a causal agent, but again not as an object of the verb "to lag".
3. Using "lag" alone is a subject-verb construct, leaving an implicit target/reference from context expectations. A coach or supervisor might scold someone for lagging.
As a bit of a tangent, I actually wonder if the etymology of "to lag" is more Germanic than some people assume. The verb lagern has many uses for placing, storing, and leaving behind. It's where our English concept of a "lager" beer comes from too, referencing the way the beer is fermented in (cold) storage. If this linguistic connection remained fresh, we might think of an SVO construct of lagging as the opposite of the intent in this article. The leader would lag the follower by leaving them behind!