Grammar check - for advanced grammarians only

[Brainaddict]

Language is dynamic and grammarians are not.

Some grammarians, to be fair.

The comma thing is always funny. I was taught at school to use more rather than less, but these days I know editors are likely to remove as many as possible, so I've changed my usage accordingly (though I still felt two commas in that sentence was appropriate apparently). Other people seem slightly less flexible about it...

 

[Brainaddict]

Well, shit, i didn't realise there was a duplicate thread. Here's what i posted in the other one:

Well, R.W. Burchfield has this to say about the use of "sat" as a present participle, as you're using it here:Now, the examples given here are all present tense, and yours is past tense, but the use of sat as a participle replacing sitting follows the same principle.

Personally, i think sitting would be more standard, and would be considered more grammatically correct. The thing is, though, sat is used by people from certain places, and in certain circumstances. What you have to look at is the context of your writing. If the character using the word in your example is a fictional character who would, in fact, talk like that, then there's nothing wrong with using it. If, on the other hand, you're writing a non-fiction piece and using the word as part of a merely descriptive sentence, i think sitting would be better.

Also, have you considered the possibility of using the participial adjective seated?

"We were seated at the bar...."

Y'see this is why I asked for advanced grammarians. Thanks mhendo and sorry about the duplicate thread.

The story is being told by a first person narrator, so I could get away with some colloquial usage, but I didn't realise this was regional and I haven't assigned a region to the narrator so it would be a bit cheeky to use it.

I may indeed go with 'seated'.

 

[trabuquera]

I can't fecking believe that (in a thread supposedly for advanced grammarians) no one has pointed out the central issue, which is the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs ffs!

transitive = something that someone does to someone else. (i.e. the dog bit me)
intransitive = something that someone just does (i.e. I walked.)

"we sat" - we (the subject) + past perfect participle of the verb "to sit"
"we were sitting" - we (the subject) + past imperfect of the intransitive verb

"we WERE sat" - means we (the OBJECT) WERE SAT DOWN IN A CERTAIN PLACE BY SOMEONE ELSE - the bar manager or the waitress or whoever, who would be the actual subject of the sentence. In this case the

It's splitting a very very fine hair, and colloquially "we were sat at the bar" is perfectly fine, but it really does have that tinge that you have been seated there one someone else's say-so.

so the sentence should read
"We were SITTING at the bar struggling to find common ground when the owner of the hotel approached us."

or, for the comma-friendly,
"We were sitting at the bar, struggling to find common ground, when the owner of the hotel approached us."

that is all. tsk tsk tsk at you lot! clearly the art of parsing is dead....

 

[Brainaddict]

I can't fecking believe that (in a thread supposedly for advanced grammarians) no one has pointed out the central issue, which is the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs ffs!

transitive = something that someone does to someone else. (i.e. the dog bit me)
intransitive = something that someone just does (i.e. I walked.)

"we sat" - we (the subject) + past perfect participle of the verb "to sit"
"we were sitting" - we (the subject) + past imperfect of the intransitive verb

"we WERE sat" - means we (the OBJECT) WERE SAT DOWN IN A CERTAIN PLACE BY SOMEONE ELSE - the bar manager or the waitress or whoever, who would be the actual subject of the sentence. In this case the

It's splitting a very very fine hair, and colloquially "we were sat at the bar" is perfectly fine, but it really does have that tinge that you have been seated there one someone else's say-so.

so the sentence should read
"We were SITTING at the bar struggling to find common ground when the owner of the hotel approached us."

or, for the comma-friendly,
"We were sitting at the bar, struggling to find common ground, when the owner of the hotel approached us."

that is all. tsk tsk tsk at you lot! clearly the art of parsing is dead....

And I suppose 'we were seated' would have the same problem. But no-one was actually confused into thinking that the narrator had been seated by someone else so, like you say, it's a very fine line.

Just to add on commas, I take the attitude that if a sentence is easily comprehensible without commas (as this one is) then the commas are superfluous, even inelegant. So if you have commas in a sentence, the test is to take the commas away and see if it changes (or risks changing) the meaning of the sentence. If it doesn't then you don't need those commas. Simple no? Oops. Simple, no?

 

[nick1181]

I think the best way of dealing with this sort of thing is to always write from the POV from someone who's a bit crap at grammar.

 

[Fruitloop]

Maybe the English usage is a kind of hangover from the French, where the transitive usage is fine because it's a reflexive verb.

<cat -> pigeons />

 

[fear-n-loathing]

that fucking tom tom ad where all he keeps saying in the car "scott scott do i turn right here??"

jesus christ so fucking annoying

 

[TeeJay]

The verb 'to be' is often used with an adjective to describe a state of being. In this instance the past participle of the verb 'to sit' is being used as an adjective and is perfectly acceptable. One could also use the the past participle of 'to stand' in the sentence 'He was stood near the door'. Language is dynamic and grammarians are not.

This is the right answer.