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In BrE, one can apparently use I'm sat here to mean I'm sitting here. This seems to be a relatively modern usage:

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I had originally thought that this was a regional or dialectical variant and had asked a question about this, but the discussion in the comments and the fact that I found many occurrences of the phrase in print (searching Google Books) suggest that it is in fact quite widespread:

Don't think: I'm sat here waiting for my plays to be produced; think: I am sat here waiting to write those plays that can only be produced, now. [source]

I'm sat here in Vittles waiting for a second pot of tea, and life is OK, on the whole. [source]

I'm sat here, in the back of a van with my Thermos full of hot tea, protecting a car-park. [source]

And it'sonly now that I'm sat here to with Emma that the absurdity of what I'm doing is starting hit home. [source]

I'm sat here watching and listening to them talk. [source]

When I'm sat beside his grave / The reason I'm sat here crying / Is for the life I couldn't save. [source]

I'm sat here, tears running down my face and no one asks if I'm okay. [source]

However, it was suggested in the comments (1, 2) that there may be a difference in meaning between I'm sat here and I am sitting here with the former beeing more negative. Perhaps because it implies a certain "passivity", that the person so sitting was placed there as opposed to having chosen to sit. While some of the examples I found and am quoting above do seem to be negative, I don't see evidence of such a trend.

So, my question here is i) is there actually any difference between I'm sat here and I'm sitting here and, ii) if so, does the former have some sort of negative connotation?

Please note that this is about the specific usage of sat to replace sitting and not for cases such as "I sat the baby down".

It is also not a duplicate of Is "I am sat" bad English? which is asking whether I'm sat is "good English". I am instead asking whether there is any subtle difference in usage between the two.

Community
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terdon
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    Possible duplicate of Is "I am sat" bad English? – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 16:30
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    @EdwinAshworth no, it's not a dupe. I'm not asking whether it is "good English" or even acceptable usage, I know it is common in BrE and in a previous question two users suggested in the comments that there may be differences in nuance between the two. It is those differences I am asking about here. – terdon Jul 09 '16 at 17:30
  • These Google Ngrams give an idea of how common the usage actually is. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 18:00
  • @EdwinAshworth is that supposed to be a joke or did you just forget to add a space between the two search phrases? In any case, again, I am well aware of which of the two is more common, but that has absolutely no bearing on the question at hand. I want to know whether there is any difference between the two for people who use both. I would never say I'm sat here so it's hard for me to judge. – terdon Jul 09 '16 at 18:04
  • Loob, at WordReference.com, where this question is addressed, says: "I don't think it's a new trend: several regional varieties of English have always (to the best of my knowledge) used the past participle instead of the present participle in this construction.

    What is, perhaps, new (-ish) is the wider acceptance - or even appreciation/encouragement - of regional varieties, not just in institutions like the BBC, but more generally.

     – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 18:04
  • I can remember a time when pretty much the only accent you heard on the TV/radio was RP, other than the odd terribly-fake Cockney that turned up now and then in films. (Oh, and series about Scottish doctors.) That is absolutely not the case now. And on a more personal note, my parents [both Welsh, both teachers] deliberately lost their Welsh accents, whereas I - equally deliberately - have kept my Somerset one.

    I think what we have here is a societal change, not a linguistic one."

     – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 18:04
  • @EdwinAshworth well, if you plot the NGram of I'm sat here by itself, you can clearly see a spike in the past few years. But, again, that's not what I'm asking. While I am actually interested in discussing how long this has been around and how it came to be, that's not something we can do in the comments. This question is specifically asking whether there are any differences in nuance between the two forms. I don't understand why you keep directing me to discussions about its acceptance or age. – terdon Jul 09 '16 at 18:06
  • Press on the 'search' button; something's playing up. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 18:09
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – terdon Jul 09 '16 at 18:10
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    Colin Fine's answer: << Forms like "I am sat here" and "they were stood there" are common in certain dialects of English (such as Yorkshire, where I live), but are not regarded as standard English, which prefers "I am sitting here" and "they were standing there". >> + Loob's comments above about the long history of the regional use of 'was sat' and 'destandardisation' by eg the BBC address the question, but there is nothing in the way of an authoritative / well-researched article. // I referred back to the previous thread because acceptability needs defining first. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 18:18
  • @EdwinAshworth how do they address the question of whether there is any difference in meaning between the two? I am happy to wait for an answer and even accept that there isn't one, but the suggested duplicate simply doesn't touch on what I'm asking here. And please take any further discussion to the chat room above. – terdon Jul 09 '16 at 18:23
  • If the usage is unacceptable, 'what is the difference in meaning' becomes a non-question. If, as seems to be the case, this is regionally more or less 'acceptable' (eg more 'accepted' in the North of England), the question is too broad for ELU except for broad-brush answers which aren't really satisfactory(but which have already been given, without any corroborative evidence). – Edwin Ashworth Jul 09 '16 at 19:02
  • @EdwinAshworth And interestingly, north of the Trent, if you go into a pub and order a steak they are as likely to ask you "How would you like it cooking?" The past and present participles of verbs have been inverted from standard English. I trust that your parents didn't do the thing that Roy Jenkins daftly did when at Oxford - and replace his Welsh lilt with "marked RP". Pronouncing "cloth" as though it were spelled "clawth" probably cost him the leadership of the Labour Party and hence the PM's office! – WS2 Jan 03 '20 at 09:59

4 Answers4

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Ignoring the grammarian 'it is wrong' response, the 'standard' (for want of a better term) answer is that it is a quasi-passive. Fowler, for example, explains it as such in his Pocket Modern English Usage. The basic idea is that sentences such as "someone broke the car" and "the car needs fixing" are passive-like in function though not form as the actor is external and/or unknown.

Maybe more relevantly, the same idea allows the passive voice to have a continuum of function for the past participle from adjective-like to verb-like. In this, sentences like "I'm sat/I'm stood" are more adjective-like in function while "I'm sitting/I'm standing" are obviously more verb-like.

In short, "I'm sat here" is similar to "I'm big" or "I'm tall" - you are describing yourself more than saying what activity you are engaged in. In contrast "I'm sitting here" is saying what you are doing.

In the spirit of being fair, I am not 100% convinced by this explanation but neither can I think of a better one.

Roaring Fish
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  • Interesting, thanks. So are you suggesting that its passive nature makes it carry slightly negative connotations? Also, the Fowler quote is hidden for me. Would it be possible to reproduce it in your answer? – terdon Jul 09 '16 at 18:13
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    You are welcome. As I understand the argument (and keeping in mind that my field is language aquisition rather than this kind of stuff...) the difference is in the function of the phrase. "I'm sat here" leans towards your situation or state similar to "I'm angry", but "I'm siitting here" describes your action, similar to "I'm waiting". – Roaring Fish Jul 09 '16 at 18:24
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"I'm sat" assumes that 'sat' is the passive participle of 'sit', which requires that 'sit' be a transitive verb. (In AmE, 'set' is transitive, but 'sit' is not.)

Since "I'm sat" is passive, it means that someone put you in a sitting position, but that someone was not necessarily you, yourself; whereas "I'm sitting" means that you 'sat' yourself.

AmI
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    This is certainly how I would interpret it, but judging by the question and other replies, a recent usage has developed where the connotation of having been put there is no longer present. Can that connotation still be present for those speakers? – reinierpost Mar 10 '18 at 06:11
  • I think the connotation is still present -- you were seated there by someone. What is unknown is whether the agent was yourself or someone else (and the corresponding changes to the meaning of 'to seat'). Language means whatever we [all] agree it to mean, so changes to grammar should not be made lightly. – AmI Mar 12 '18 at 20:40
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    Why wouldn't one say "I was seated"? Which means someone put them in a seat? Or "I'm seated", someone put me in a seat which I am in right now. "I'm sat" just sounds very 'Only Way is Essex'-ish. Equivalent of an American saying "So I says to myself..." or "He done messed up", wrong tense but popular colloquialism. – Noon Time Jan 03 '20 at 07:25
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    Perhaps you were seated, without your own volition? – codeinthehole May 23 '20 at 16:46
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I feel a little uncomfortable posting this as an answer, because it involves the death of a young man, and I don't mean to belittle his demise. However, from purely a linguistic point of view, the headline is of some interest.

The Mail Online, a British Newspaper tabloid, has the following sad title (Jul 10th 2016 2PM)

Pictured: Wife who was sat in the crowd as her Spanish matador husband was gored to death - the first bullfighter killed in 30 years

I'm pretty sure, ten or twenty years ago, the headline would have been

Pictured: Wife who was seated in the crowd ...

The construction, I believe, helps emphasise that the wife was one of hundreds (or thousands) of spectators in the bullfighting arena.

Mari-Lou A
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Perhaps it is meant in the present tense with almost mocking sense rather than negative connotation. Passive, helpless I'm not sure about, could be mutual gatherings. Sort of like being in a conversation with someone or a small group, you want to jump in with something witty or anything else.

The phrase would be a stark intro to catch the attention, i.e. "So now I've sat here and listened to you rattle on about this nonsense with getting...." In response to what the other individual(s) were talking about.

Friends of mine from the UK (I live in the USA) use it that way. Especially when the other is full of it and you kinda want to tease them about it. It is a phrase that plays into the culture of dry brit humor, and sometimes in dismay, "So now I've sat here for an hour fighting these lousy teams, only to get a meh reward."

livresque
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A. Roofer
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