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.
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.