Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[gurnemanz]

But would you mind being stood up in the pub?

Looking forward to any pub visit, sat or stood, having been only once in the last 6 months. Waistline improved , though.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But would you mind being stood up in the pub?

A close colleague and fellow linguist for many years used it all the time. Admittedly, he was from the North of Enlgand where I think it is standard colloquial usage. I also don't mind "We were sat in the pub ..."

If we were sat in the pub, we would have been placed there by someone else.
As someone who has lived in northern England for 66 years of my life, I've never found it acceptable. And why blame Northerners? It's rife in Devon too. It's a simple misunderstanding of the present/past continuous tense.

[cloughie]

Such talk has no standing, as for as I am concerned.

Then you was probably sat there.

[cloughie]

But would you mind being stood up in the pub?

Depends on whom I was awaiting!

[Serial_Apologist]

I've never greatly objected to that. A close colleague and fellow linguist for many years used it all the time. Admittedly, he was from the North of Enlgand where I think it is standard colloquial usage. I also don't mind "We were sat in the pub ..."

In cockney: "We was sat in a pub".

[gurnemanz]

If we were sat in the pub, we would have been placed there by someone else.
As someone who has lived in northern England for 66 years of my life, I've never found it acceptable. And why blame Northerners? It's rife in Devon too. It's a simple misunderstanding of the present/past continuous tense.

I'm certainly not blaming anyone. The friend I referred to is a fellow language teacher and does understand about different verb forms. Anyway, language acquisition mostly tends to be an unconscious and instinctive process rather than a conscious and deductive one. I revel in the variety of spoken English to be encountered and would not be inclined to use words like "unacceptable" to condemn someone for having slightly different speech habits from me. It is through these mutations that languages evolve and stay dynamic. When the present continuous verb form (strictly speaking, an aspect not a tense), unknown to Chaucer, came into the language no doubt some people found it unacceptable.

I have never really thought about the syntax of all this before (and should probably get out more but is raining outside) ....

"They sat us in the corner of the pub", as referred to above uses "sit" as a transitive verb with a direct object. "They seated us" is more usual as in "Please wait to be seated".

Being a transitive verb, it can have a passive form:
"We were sat in the corner of the pub". (same as We were placed ...")

This sentence, "We were sat in the corner of the pub" can have another meaning (the controversial one) and is based on a different underlying syntactic structure. I would see this as not actually a form of the verb "to sit" at all, but as the verb "to be" followed by a past participle used in an adverbial phrase, similar to: "He was lost in thought". "He was crouched over the handlebars".

You can find subtly distinct pairs: "She is sitting on the throne" (ie actually doing it at this moment) versus "She is sat on the throne" (the contentious usage) which would suggest she is already in position, having sat there previously.

"The bird was perched on a twig" is not quite the same as "The bird was perching on a twig"), the former denoting what the bird has already done and the latter what it was doing at that moment.

I rest my case.

[kernelbogey]

And we now have (a fairly recent neologism) 'He has stood down from his post' - and we are left to wonder Did he resign or was he pushed?

[kernelbogey]

Maybe he was sat sitting too much, and didn't get enough work done.

Anyway, his standing is reduced.

[Pulcinella]

Anyway, his standing is reduced.

Oops: I was editing my post and then I deleted it and thought I'd start again.
But in the meantime, it got quoted!
I won't bother posting it again, but in case anyone's trying to find it I thought I'd explain where it went.

My additional comment was to the effect that I'd even heard the expression 'sat sitting' occasionally, as you might hear 'I was sat reading the newspaper and smoking a pipe when.....'

[kernelbogey]

...I'd even heard the expression 'sat sitting' occasionally, as you might hear 'I was sat reading the newspaper and smoking a pipe when.....'

Cf 'Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits'. (The Specialist)

[Serial_Apologist]

And we now have (a fairly recent neologism) 'He has stood down from his post' - and we are left to wonder Did he resign or was he pushed?

Or, equally commonly, he was stood down from his post?

[Serial_Apologist]

Cf 'Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits'. (The Specialist)

Not the version once often seen on public toilet walls!

[LMcD]

Not the version once often seen on public toilet walls!

... or read by Sean Connery?

[teamsaint]

Something I find irritating and occasionally confusing is the lazy ommission of “ that.”

Journalists are frequently guilty of this.

[Nick Armstrong]

“that”.

Can you give an example, ts?

.

One thing I keep hearing from the western side of the Atlantic is the phrase “I could give a damn” (or other 4 letter alternative ), when surely what the speaker means is “I couldn’t give a .....”

Oh and I continue to at the regular “the thing is, is that...” or similar, not as a stutter or hesitation but as if “thing is” were a composite noun