Fandom Grammar

Let's explore a curious quirk shared by a very few English verbs. They're all a bit irregular, and they all have to do with putting things or people into position.

This topic was covered back in 2009 by green_grrl.

Take a look at this example:

The inhabitants of the shop were gathered around the Western-style dining table in what Yuuko fondly described as a familial arrangement. She was, of course, at the head. Maru and Moro were along one side, Mokona was opposite them, and Watanuki was sat at the foot.

If you find something a bit amiss with was sat, you're correct. For one thing, although some British dialects (generally from the north of England) use this form, to most people it sounds rather as though Yuuko had used magic to drop the hapless Watanuki directly into his chair. For another, if Yuuko were behind Watanuki's presence in the chair at the foot of the table, the sentence would need the past participle of "to seat," which is seated rather than sat.

There are a number of better ways to describe Watanuki's position at Yuuko's dinner table. If you simply wanted to specify his position at the table, the passage would likely read:

The inhabitants of the shop were gathered around the Western-style dining table in what Yuuko fondly described as a familial arrangement. She was, of course, at the head. Maru and Moro were along one side, Mokona was opposite them, and Watanuki sat at the foot.

If, on the other hand, you wanted to make sure that the readers know that the Dimension Witch had directed the seating arrangements of her staff (as is likely), it would read:

The inhabitants of the shop were gathered around the Western-style dining table in what Yuuko fondly described as a familial arrangement. She was, of course, at the head. Maru and Moro were along one side, Mokona was opposite them, and she had seated Watanuki at the foot.

More neutrally, if you didn't want to emphasize Yuuko's imperious ways but want to imply a slightly formal arrangement, you could express it as:

The inhabitants of the shop were gathered around the Western-style dining table in what Yuuko fondly described as a familial arrangement. She was, of course, at the head. Maru and Moro were along one side, Mokona was opposite them, and Watanuki was seated at the foot.

Something else is going on here as well. The words in question are actually two slightly different verbs. To sit means to put oneself into a sitting position. It's an intransitive verb, which means it takes no object. On the other hand, to seat, which is transitive (that is, it takes an object) can mean to put something into a particular position:

When Watanuki finished dusting the shelf, he put all the antiquities back, seating each ancient plate on its own little stand.

You could also use the related verb to set here, of course:

When Watanuki finished dusting the shelf, he put all the antiquities back, setting each ancient plate on its own little stand.

Finally, to seat can mean to designate a seat (as at a table or in a theater) for a particular person or group of people, as Yuuko did for her dinner party earlier in the article.

I mentioned that there are other verbs with similar peculiarities. To lie (intransitive), for example, means to put oneself into a reclining position:

Yuuko lay elegantly sprawled on the brocaded sofa, idly waving a peaock feather fan. She might have lain there all night, as far as Watanuki could tell.

To lay (transitive), on the other hand, means to put something into place:

Watanuki laid the carved pipes carefully on the velvet-covered shelf shelf.

(We should also point out that to lie, meaning to purposely say something that is not the truth, is another word entirely.)

Another similar pair is rise (intransitive) and raise (transitive):

At the sound of the door chime, Watanuki rose from his seat in the store room and raised the curtain that covered the entry to the shop's front room, peering beneath it to see who had come in.

Keep in mind whether you're talking about putting someone (or something) into its place when you pick your verb, or whether the person in question is doing it on her or his own.

Source