usage - Is there any difference between "I'm sat" and "I'm sitting"?

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

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.}

Answer

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.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Notes

Search This Blog