There were plenty of times when a scene would be described as “We see the family on a normal Saturday night. Dad is sat in front of the TV, mum is sat at the table, doing a jigsaw. The kids are sat on the floor, playing a game”
That was the language I grew up with, and to use “sitting” instead of sat" would just have sounded weird.
I mean – “the family is sitting down to dinner”, sure – that sounds normal because it is something they are doing. But if it is passive speech (so to speak) then why would anyone use “sitting”? It’s just weird.
I think I’d tend to use has/had sat instead of is sat, but that would make it past tense not passive. But at this point I’ve thought about the word sat enough times that it’s begun to lose its meaning.
I’m sorry – are you criticising my grammar?
How else would you phrase this?
“Is sat” is uncommon in American English. It would more commonly be “is sitting.” Are you from the UK?
Yes.
And I have used “is sat” my entire life – which is quite a long time.
Yup, it’s not incorrect, it’s just a colloquialism Americans don’t usually use.
I think it feels weird mixing verb tenses, but it’s still comprehendable
It’s literally never occurred to me before.
There were plenty of times when a scene would be described as “We see the family on a normal Saturday night. Dad is sat in front of the TV, mum is sat at the table, doing a jigsaw. The kids are sat on the floor, playing a game”
That was the language I grew up with, and to use “sitting” instead of sat" would just have sounded weird.
I mean – “the family is sitting down to dinner”, sure – that sounds normal because it is something they are doing. But if it is passive speech (so to speak) then why would anyone use “sitting”? It’s just weird.
I think I’d tend to use has/had sat instead of is sat, but that would make it past tense not passive. But at this point I’ve thought about the word sat enough times that it’s begun to lose its meaning.
Yes, perfectly understandable. Can remove lot word and tense in English still understand what say.
Why use many word when few word do fine? (👁 ͜ʖ👁)