Job Discussion Forums

[teacheringreece]

I've often wondered about this usage. But it's not that it's strange that 'sit' can be used transitively - 'sit' can always be a transitive a verb, it's just that used transitively it has the meaning of 'tell/make somebody to sit somewhere', e.g. 'She sat the children down in the living room and went to start dinner.'

But yes in the UK it's very common to say 'He was sat over there' instead of 'He was sitting over there'. So the 'mistake' is actually using a passive form instead of a continuous form. Exactly the same is possible with 'stand', i.e. 'He was stood over there.'

I suppose it might have to do with 'be sat' being shorter than 'be sitting', as SueH says, although obviously if we applied that rule generally then every continuous form would be replaced by a passive structure to economise in this way. But we just do it with two semantically related verbs - sit and stand. It's a strange one.

[ESL Hobo]

Hi teacheringreece,

'Sat down' is a seperable phrasal verb, dont know if that makes a difference, any expert grammarians out there?

You know what they say, "All grammarians go to hell, "

As Brother Sammy once said upon standing at the gates of Hell when asked how many times he had been married, he replied, "Three times", "OK you can go you'e served your time, get outa here."

This is not a sexist statement BTW, women who have been married three times get a free pass, too.

[johnslat]

Dear guty,

"But as educated native speakers, do you really want conformity across the English speaking world? Doesn't the variety add to the beauty of the language?"

Hey, I'm all for non-conformity. However, don't we, as teachers, have the responsibility to teach, not what a small section of the English-speaking world might use (that way lies madness), but what is considered generally accepted usage?

Regards,
John

[guty]

Johnslat said

[ESL Hobo]

Hi Guty,

I said, "Generally accepted" not absolutely correct.
Anyway, this paraphrase is from one of the greats of Linguistics, not mine.
Cant remember who said it.