h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The action of lowering her body onto the chair: "She was sitting down".
The action (rather: the state) of maintaining an occupying position on the chair: "She was sitting."

The same is true for the opposite: "She was standing up." (laboriously so, with much groaning and sweating and it took her a long time). After this: "She was standing."

Stop me from having airs (or gas?) of linguistic superiority, please

To me "He was sat" doesn't sound like a voluntary thing. More for "He was sat there looking like a fool" or "He was sat at the far end of the wedding table, because nobody liked him".

Surely the "she was sitting" is only the present progressive and indicates that she was there for more than a fleeting moment - and while something else was going on? "When I entered the room (simple past) she was sitting on the table (past progressive)"

Nobody these days cares about split infinitives though

Alfster you must be younger than me. I went to a state primary school in the early-mid 70s and we most certainly had grammar lessons. From a lovely book called The Queen's English

(prompting 's standard joke: Don't you know the Queen's English? Of course I know she's English!)

Just looked it up in Fowler's.

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SAT

used for sitting, is largely associated with local or dialect usage, but evidence of its use is more widespread than this might suggest:


I can't help thinking of that Tim sat there juddering his leg up and down —Kingsley Amis, 1988


Now, I'm sat in a nice car, my husband at my side —A. Duff, NewZE 1990


In no time at all, she was sat back on the bus going home —fiction website, BrE 2005.


This quasi-passive use remains non-standard nonetheless. See also STOOD.

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it's difficult to describe, but I just really don't like it.

Apropos of accents and schools, btw. I had a lovely Yorkshire accent until I went to school down south. And had it kicked out of me

"She was sat" doesn't sound voluntary to me. Someone "sat her down" in order to read her the riot act about some infraction.

My local area (Cannock) uses expressions like "Er day" (she didn't) and "Er ay" (she isn't) which grind somewhat.

My main source of irritation between spoken and written is the could've, should've, would've thing. You know the one, where people write she could of done this, should of done that and would of done the other.

HAVE

Deb

Well, in Minnesota some would write and say "She should of did that."
But at least they didn't say "yous" or "ya'll", but "you guys"

The problem with standardising English is all the rules that were decided upon by someone or other weren't carefully worked out which why there are so many exceptions to the rules.Applying the rules of the classic languages to English just failed miserably.

So maybe it is time to reorganise our language but bearing in mind any language is organic and will continue to develop as time passes.

I have a friend who teaches Spanish. She says that there are *many* exceptions to the rules, especially regarding irregular verbs.

there are exceptions to rules in most languages. It all comes down to a matter of learning them as you learn the language.

I feel it's too late for something like the Academie Francaise (sp?) for English. Not least because of the number of countries that have English as a first language: what if it's based in the USA and decides to get rid of the U in colour? or saying that theatre is wrong and from now it must be theater?

It is true that a living language has to be fluid and changeable. But we have to have a framework to communicate so that we all know what we are saying (and look at the differences between British-English and American-English to see that we already have something of a problem there).

No, Sho. It is not "just plain wrong". It is a perfectly grammatical English sentence - what you don't like about it is either that the meaning has changed (which has nothing to do with grammar) or it just "seems wrong".

Anyone reading the current sentence examples with a lisp in mind? Makes the whole debate quite .

KB,

I do think that "He was sat there" *is* wrong. I cannot see by what grammatical rule it has been formed. It would have to be a grammatical rule that allows other sentences to be formed accordingly.

If you see the sentence as grammatically acceptable, then the underlying rule would be "Passive constructions may be formed using intransitive verbs". Sit (sit/sat/sat) is such an intransitive verb, just as "sleep", "go", "rain", "die", "live", and "be".

So, applying the rule you imply, we get such sentences. Please tell me which ones do you think are acceptable:

1) "He was slept there."
2) "He was gone there."
3) "It was rained there."
4) "He was died there."
5) "He was lived there."
6) "He was been there."

Seems to me only one of those might be okay-ish. So maybe you don't accept "He was sat there" on the basis of a new rule regarding passivation, but because you feel that "to sit" can be used as a transitive verb. That might give you sentences like:
7) "The mother sits the child on the chair."
8) "Jake sits the chair."
9) "I sit you the chair."

None of these sound any good to me.

So - "to sit" is an intransitive verb. Passive can only be formed with transitive verbs. Ergo, "He was sat there" is *not* a grammatically acceptable sentence - unless you invoke the clause that this sentence is an exception to whatever rule. I would rather argue that the sentence is not grammatically correct to any prescriptive grammar models. In terms of descriptive grammar, you can only say that speakers of certain regions use this in their local dialect and here (and only here) does it carry the meaning of either "he was sitting there" or "he was placed there."

Y.

Number 7 is perfectly OK. Parents spend a lot of time sitting toddlers in high chairs or push chairs or dining chairs...
There's also the common invitation: 'sit yourdelf down'

yourself, that is

> I have heard that split infinitives are a hold over from Latin and as I don't speak Latin we should I avoid splitting them these days?

That makes it sound like this was a rule which was invented by pedants for the sake of it. Not so. In Old English, it was impossible to split infinitives, for they were a single word. Later, when the infinitive split into the modern "to _" form, it was still not split. Splitting infinitives was something that people just didn't do. This was a real rule of English usage, not a made-up pedantry.

Later, when people began to split their infinitives, the pedants sometimes drew an analogy with Latin in an attempt to reinforce their position. That was silly of them. Anyway, language changes. In modern English, splitting infinitives is perfectly normal.

TRiG.

And I'm with Wand'rin Star on this one.

TRiG.

It's not "she was sat" surely - it's "she were sat"?

(Do I win a prize for the most ungrammatical post?)