I'm sat here

[toastedcat]

I am seeing this more and more! Why?!

[upinaballoon]

You are seeing it more and more and hearing it more and more because very few English-speakers give a tuppenny toss about speaking English well. Did you hear a BBC reporter saying it?

Present tense - I am sitting, you are sitting, he is sitting et cetera

Past tense, in fact, one of our many past tenses - I sat, you sat, he sat et cetera

They should be sitting there facing the front, at four years old, saying all of the tenses by rote, followed by the two times table. We'll never compete with the Poles for jobs if we don't get a bit of rigour into our education system.

As an English child in England I didn't learn to conjugate tenses until I went to big school and learned French and Latin, but I sometimes think it wouldn't have hurt to spend a little bit of school time talking about tenses in English.

Do you think "We was sat here" is worse than "I am sat here"?

[FurryDandelionSeekingMissile]

It's a dialect variant, and for the last few decades there's been an effort to normalise variants of English other than the standard/prestige dialects and accents. Additionally, ordinary people now conduct a lot of our daily communication using written language, often in publicly-accessible ways, so casual conservation which used to be only ephemeral spoken words between people who share a dialect is now published widely to be read by a broader range of people.

[Gummibär]

It's so wrong and bothers me too! It's often said on the radio, even the BBC..!

I am sitting (presence)

I sat (past)

Simple

[Mamette]

I sometimes think it wouldn't have hurt to spend a little bit of school time talking about tenses in English.

it wouldn’t have hurt to have spent a little bit of school time

[FurryDandelionSeekingMissile]

You just have to evaluate what tone and conventions work well for what you're doing.

I think "sat" for "sitting" goes really nicely in a humorous or ranty story you're telling to a friend, maybe in the present tense to give a sense of immediacy, perhaps with the odd "I says" for that extremely informal feeling. Something like, "So I'm sat out there waiting for Derek, but he's only gone and moved to Peru already without telling me, so I get him on the phone and I says, 'What am I gonna do with all these guinea pigs now?' and he says…"

[FurryDandelionSeekingMissile]

I mean it's far more standard to say, "I was sitting out there waiting for Derek, but he'd already moved to Peru without telling me. I called him on the phone and asked, 'What am I going to do with all these guinea pigs now?' and he said…" but it doesn't have the same feel —it's like I'm writing a report rather than chatting with a friend and trying to make her laugh. The freedom to use nonstandard forms helps with expression and individuality as well as forming bonds between people who share a nonstandard variant. It's true that having standardised forms of the language helps with rapid and reliable communication and comprehension, but we'd lose a lot if we all had to use standard English every time we wrote anything for any reason.

[TheSausageKingofChicago]

You may be sat there, but I’m stood over here.

[NoNameNowAgain]

It used to be dialect but it has been taking over for decades. In a few years we’ll all be deploring ‘I was sitting’ as a terrible Americanism.
I think it is sad when we lose distinctions of meaning.

[upinaballoon]

@Mamette

I sometimes think it wouldn't have hurt to spend a little bit of school time talking about tenses in English.

it wouldn’t have hurt to have spent a little bit of school time

O.K.😃

[pigsDOfly]

It's not just in speech and on social media I'm seeing this, it's also cropping up in books and in the sort of newspapers that should know better.

[Wauden]

'I was sat there': I think that this is the passive tense as if to mean 'someone sat me there'. In other words, someone did it to me, they made me sit there and I did not chose to sit there out of my own choice.
That is why it annoys me so much! 🤓

[IsThePopeCatholic]

@upinaballoon

You are seeing it more and more and hearing it more and more because very few English-speakers give a tuppenny toss about speaking English well. Did you hear a BBC reporter saying it?

Present tense - I am sitting, you are sitting, he is sitting et cetera

Past tense, in fact, one of our many past tenses - I sat, you sat, he sat et cetera

They should be sitting there facing the front, at four years old, saying all of the tenses by rote, followed by the two times table. We'll never compete with the Poles for jobs if we don't get a bit of rigour into our education system.

As an English child in England I didn't learn to conjugate tenses until I went to big school and learned French and Latin, but I sometimes think it wouldn't have hurt to spend a little bit of school time talking about tenses in English.

Do you think "We was sat here" is worse than "I am sat here"?

Is that you, Michael Gove?

[IsThePopeCatholic]

@Mamette

I sometimes think it wouldn't have hurt to spend a little bit of school time talking about tenses in English.

it wouldn’t have hurt to have spent a little bit of school time

Love it!

[Purplemagnolias]

@Wauden

'I was sat there': I think that this is the passive tense as if to mean 'someone sat me there'. In other words, someone did it to me, they made me sit there and I did not chose to sit there out of my own choice.
That is why it annoys me so much! 🤓

Good point. In the past tense it does indeed imply a passive tense. So one wonders who or what sat you there?!
It doesn't explain the present tense "I am sat here" which is just WRONG!

[SkylightSkylight]

I like it.

I know it's not 'correct' but it does change 'the tone' of the 'story'

i was sitting there, waiting for the ballet class to finish.

I was sat there....

personally I think sitting sounds like you're happily doing so & sat implies you were bored/fed up/annoyed. 💁🏻‍♀️

currently annoying me 'we was'

[NoNameNowAgain]

‘I sat there’ could also imply dissatisfaction, don’t you think?