'I was sat'

[CTW23]

Which is correct?
'I was sitting there and blah blah' or 'I was sat there and blah blah'.
'I was sat' sounds so wrong to me but I'm not sure which is right!
Thanks

Language evolves. It's very commonly used and accepted.

Have you ever heard the saying ´a language is a dialect with an army’?

‘Commonly used’ and ‘accepted’ are not synonymous with ‘correct’ though, which is what the OP was asking.

Hmm I must need to sit down with my verb charts 😂

The point I thought I was making was:
Sat and ate are both simple past forms
Was eating and was sitting are both continuous past tense

We don't say "I was ate" so we shouldn't say "I was sat"

I'll think about it again!

My view too. Fine in conversation, fine on FB or MN. Don't use it in your dissertation.

Exactly. "I was sat" is incorrect, even if commonly used. The same goes for "Me and DH are buying a house" as well as "It means so much to DH and I." All commonly used. All incorrect.

It’s not relevant that ´ate’ and ´sat’ are both simple past forms when we’re using the past particle. It is a bit confusing since ´sat’ is both the simple past form and the past participle. But that’s actually the case for the majority of English verbs…

This thread reminds me of this meme (as a Linguistics graduate, relatable 😆)

So you're someone who thinks their dialect is correct and everyone else's is common?

No. There are rules of language and grammar. Verbs have tenses.

Ah but who makes the rules?
Who decides which language changes are good and which changes are bad?
We don’t speak like shakespeare or Chaucer so we can’t deny that ´correct’ changes over time. There is always variation in how language is used. Some things spread to the majority of language users and stick around and some things stay within a smaller speech community and perhaps last a shorter length of time. What makes you so sure ´we was sat’ is going to stay in the latter category?

Who decides which language changes are good and which changes are bad?

I am, generally speaking, on the side of the descriptive approach, but I would happily volunteer for this job, if only to make the tasks of editors easier.

As pp said, it's everywhere now, newspapers that should know better, books. It's not just in texts and casual speech.

I've just finished reading an otherwise well written book that was sprinkled with 'she/he was sat' and 'she/he was stood'.

It feels somehow disappointing when reading a good book to come across this sort of thing.

Also, one of the characters, at one point, was cutting 'slithers' of fruit, another pet hate of mine.

BBC News Channel 231, woman commentating on D Day remembrances, about either USA or Canadian veterans who are sitting in wheel-chairs and with blue blankets over their knees because it's cold 'sat' in a wheelchair like that for a long time. Honey, I'd prefer you said 'sitting'.

I have noticed this morning that some commentators say 'veteran' but some others have been talking about 'vet'rans'.

This reminds me that we will have a lot of Alympic Games this summer.

Well, now I've been a maungy old grumbling git for a while, I'll clear off and cheer up.

Whilst listening to a programme on Radio 4 this morning I heard, to my horror, 'I was sat' spoken by one of the presenters. Radio 4, for goodness sake. The country's clearly going to the dogs.

Do I need to add that my post is meant to be jokey in tone? Just in case someone thinks I'm being entirely serious.

The sentiment, however, is serious.

Your example of the Olympics is a schwa.The usual and correct pronunciation for a vowel sound in an unstressed syllable. "Olympics" has 3 syllables, the main stress is on the second, the secondary on the third, so the vowel in the first syllable becomes a schwa.

Your "veterans" example is a silent syllable. Veterans has either 2 or 3 syllables, depending on your personal pronunciation choices. More formal/RP types of accent won't pronounce the unstressed second syllable (which would again be a schwa) but would make it a silent syllable and give the word 2 instead of 3. (It's similar to "chocolate" or "vegetable". Less formal pronunciation choices give the former 3 syllables and use a schwa, and the latter 4, whilst more standard/formal/RP accents use silent syllables. (ˈtʃɒk.lət etc)

Both are perfectly correct. People who believe that formal southern British standard is the only correct way would argue that the silent syllable way is more correct. (I'm not one of them)

https://englishlanguagethoughts.com/2020/06/07/i-was-sat-there/comment-page-1/#comments

You might like this.

My personal pronunciation choice veers more toward 'gratitude to the veterans' with the middle syllable of veteran being there, but not in a big way, than 'gra'itude to the vet'rans'.

I think I sound the middle 'o' in chocolate just a little, and the middle 'e' in vegetable hardly at all.

'I was sat' is incorrect and ugly. You would not say 'I was swam' or 'I was ran' would you? It would be 'I was swimming' and 'I was running'.

'Could of' instead of 'could have', used by adults!!!

I remember reading (in The Times, no less) “The Queen was sat…” and wondering who would have the temerity to do such a thing to Her Majesty.

I've been struck by the creeping of "I was sat" as opposed to "I was sitting" even into the pages of the BBC, Guardian etc. It was local dialect in the particular bit of the East Midlands where I grew up. I had an English teacher at my grammar school who got quite agitated when pupils used it: "Who SAT you there? Who STOOD you at the bus stop? Come on, tell me!"

I was thinking about this after I heard someone say it on radio 4 the other day and nearly had a fit of the vapours. I realised that we do actually say things like "I was perched" or "I was balanced", but "I was sat" and "I was stood" are seen as colloquial, dialect or wrong. I couldn't decide if they were the same grammatically or not so I'm still not sure.

The examples you've given are also wrong. I perched or I was perching, I balanced or I was balancing.

But I can say "look DCs you have a balanced see saw!" Therefore I can also say "I was balanced" e.g. I was balanced on the log, just as I can say I was cold in the car.