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Could you please help and explain to me how to correct the seemingly incorrect passive voice sentence pattern?

  • I would prefer it if we could be sat next to a window.
tchrist
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elmer
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    What do you think is seemingly incorrect here? – KillingTime Nov 16 '21 at 16:16
  • Does that mean the sentence, "I would prefer it if we could be sat there?" is correct? The Grammarly app gave a message that, accordingly, it is a passive voice misuse. But, honestly, I have a feeling that it is correct. I am not jut really sure about it and can't even explain the tense. – elmer Nov 16 '21 at 16:27
  • Ushers and hosts sit you. They sit you in your favorite seat or sit you at the worst table. You are sat by them. That is the passive voice, and it is correct — if you want to use the passive voice. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/sit – Tinfoil Hat Nov 16 '21 at 19:53

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The statement is ungrammatical, and needs 'seated' if an active, punctive usage is required. 'Seat [someone etc]' is transitive; 'sit' is usually intransitive (and therefore resists/disallows passivisation). But then 'I would prefer it if we could sit next to a window' would be far more idiomatic.

However, there is a possibility that the stative, durative sense

We were sat … or were we? December 1, 2017

Q: Do all British people say “sat” instead of “sitting,” as in this example from a Brit’s blog: “We were sat around the coffee table”?

A: No, not all British people would say something like “We were sat around the coffee table.” That usage isn’t considered standard English in either the UK or the US.

However, quite a few people in the UK do indeed use “sat” that way, and the usage shows up once in a while in the US too.

In an Oct. 3, 2012, post on the Oxford Dictionaries blog, the lexicographer Catherine Soanes notes the increasing nonstandard use of the past participles “sat” and “stood” for the present participles “sitting” and “standing” in British English.

She reports hearing several instances of the usage on the BBC, including “She’s sat at the table eating breakfast” and “we were stood at the bar waiting to be served.”

Soames, editor or co-editor of several Oxford dictionaries, says the use of “sat” and “stood” for “sitting” and “standing” in continuous, or progressive, tenses is “regarded as non-standard by usage guides.”

So in this case also, the choice of 'could be sat' is non-standard.

Edwin Ashworth
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  • Is this like "seated", as in "Please be seated" and "If you would please be seated, we could get started" and "He had been seated by the door, where he was no longer sitting"? – tchrist Nov 17 '21 at 01:41
  • Those are tricky, which is why I avoided them. CD has: << seated [adjective] B2 sitting: • The woman seated opposite him kept staring at him. / • You are requested to remain seated during take-off. / • [formal] Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated (= please sit down). >> But it's interesting that 'stood' doesn't work here. I'll avoid 'lain'/'laid'. Your third example shows a stative usage, which better fits with the adjective analysis. But your first two are obviously (exhortations to the) dynamic. More verby. The ... – Edwin Ashworth Nov 17 '21 at 17:36
  • antonym 'Please be upstanding' complicates rather than helps. I think I'll stick with saying they're idioms. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 17 '21 at 17:36