incorrect use of sat?

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I Iove reading fiction books. I've seen the word -sat- used in a way I believe is incorrect. I then saw it again. I've seen it about 4 or 5 times used in this way. Here is an example of the usage of sat.
She sat the vase on the counter. Am I missing some English rule or should it be the word -set? I just can hardly believe that I've seen this happen like 5 times. Sat is the form of sit-like, "sit down". I don't understand how people can mistake sat for set. You're either sitting or placing something. This just boggles my mind and that is why I'm wondering if I am missing something. Thanks.

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@smarch,

The simple answer is that it's not grammatically correct ..when in a formal setting. However, when used in every-day language ... on-the-street ...
conversationally it's heard way too often.

The word set you might use when referring to the placing of an object (set a vase). When referring to a live human or animal in a sitting position you'd use the word sat ... e.g. "I sat for hours, but I'm set (ready to go) to leave as soon as I can!"

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@smarch,

Transitive Verbs

Like lay, the verb set requires an object. You set something, the object, down. For example, I set the book on the desk. Or if you want to get more abstract, you can set a date. There is some object that receives the action of the verb. In my examples, it is the book and the date. On the other hand, like lie, sit doesn't require a direct object; it's something you do. I sit on the sofa.

Verbs, such as set, which require an object are called “transitive verbs,” and verbs, such as sit, which don't require an object are called “intransitive verbs.” The way I remember the difference is to think of transitive verbs as transferring their action to an object.

Sit vs. Set

I also have a good memory trick to help you remember the difference between sit and set. When you're training a dog, you tell her to sit. My first dog's name was Dude and she was a girl, so we would tell her, “Sit, Dude. Sit.” And she would plop her little bottom down. She was a good dog. She was a bull mastiff, so actually her bottom wasn't that little.

So get that image in your mind of a big bull mastiff responding to the command “Sit.” That is how you use sit – for the action of sitting.

Set, on the other hand, requires an object. I would set Dude's leash on the table, but she would still think we were going for a walk. I know she saw me set it down, but she was always full of hope. In those examples, the leash and the word it were the objects. I set the leash on the table, and she saw me set it down.

So remember that a dog (or person) sits, and you set things like leashes down.

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@Ragman,

Quote:

The simple answer is that it's not grammatically correct

This has nothing whatsoever to do with grammar.

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@JTT,

Your comment shows you've misinterpreted what I've written. This is the second time you've done this. Read what I wrote. I've properly answered the OP, stating what is grammatically correct (found in a published book) and also what is appropos in every-day or street usage. Feel free to scroll on past if you have some bone to pick as nothing I wrote is inaccurate.

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@JTT,

Quote:

This has nothing whatsoever to do with grammar.

Wrong. The central issue is whether "grammar" is descriptive or prescriptive.

Descriptive grammar deals with what a speaker considers to be "acceptable usage". Prescriptive grammar is about formal rules of syntactic construction i.e "correct usage". Since speakers can be members of different speech communities in which "acceptability" can differ, futile disputes can arise where attempts are made at a resolution by appeal to "rules". The origin of prescriptive grammar in English is the 19th century political decision to " teach the lower classes to use their own language" by analogy with the teaching of Latin.

The situation is language is very much like "dress code" in clothes, with aspects of group identity, historical shifts, and fashion fads all contributing to usage. This is why non-native speakers often ask for "rulings" when in essence "communicative success" is the only arbiter. And since the non-native speaker by definition cannot be "one of us", that communication is restricted to functional efficacy rather than social acceptance. Furthermore, as soon as usage is discussed outside a particular communicative context (as it is here) this adds to to futility of trying to give "a general ruling".

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@fresco,

Since this was in a book I expected it to be grammatically correct. I thought an editor was to check the grammar among other things in a book. The word was not used as a direct quote. I know mistakes happen but I found this mistake several times (not all in the same book) and I found it strange.

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@smarch,

Quote:

grammatically correct

You clearly don't understand that "correctness" is negotiable.

1 Reply

@fresco,

So......
She sat the vase on the counter. The previous sentence means -She placed the vase on the counter. Are you telling me that the word sat which is a tense of sit could be negotiated to mean "to place"?? If sat does not mean to place then how could you use it in that sentence?

1 Reply

@Ragman,

Quote:

stating what is grammatically correct (found in a published book)

Good Lord, Ragman - you think finding something in a published book ensures grammaticality.

You don't understand 'grammatical' .

1 Reply

@smarch,

Quote:

She sat the vase on the counter. The previous sentence means -She placed the vase on the counter.

Quote:

Are you telling me that the word sat which is a tense of sit could be negotiated to mean "to place"??

You've described that very meaning, "to place", in your first sentence, Smarch. Why immediately after recognizing that fact are you now filled with surprise?

Quote:

If sat does not mean to place then how could you use it in that sentence?

She sat the vase on the counter.

She sat the child on the counter.

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I'm with JTT on this. Sit can be a transitive verb, and its object does not always have to be something or someone that can literally adopt a sitting posture. We place people in seats - we say that we sit them there, but we can by extension sit objects (place their bottoms) in places that we choose for them. It is perhaps most appropriate for objects that are placed upon other things. I shall sit this vase on the shelf. I will allow that this usage is a little casual and conversational, that is to say it is nearer the informal end of the informal - formal range, but it would be entirely incorrect to call it "wrong", and to call it "ungrammatical" would be to display a profound failure to understand what the word means.

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@JTT,

This is my last reply to you:

Once again...you misinterpet what I meant. It seems to me that no matter what, you'll continue on with your assumptions.

However, we may agree on one area ... that published books don't guaranty proper use of language or grammatical correctness (whatever that might be). In some cases books and publications will engage in conversational (or 'common street' usage) of language. It may be of value for a language speaker to learn when that is occuring.

What you or anyone else may think of rules of grammar and when to apply them might vary. As has been stated ad nauseum, when formal speech and casual speech are useful and the degrees in between.

The OP wanted to know the proper usage of set vs sat . That purpose has been served.

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Contrary to what Ragman says, I assert that to 'sit' an object somewhere is perfectly acceptable.

1 Reply

@Ragman,

Quote:

This is my last reply to you:

I suppose that's good, Ragman. At least that'll be one less posting where you badly describe language and confuse language terminology.

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Once again...you misinterpet what I meant.

No, I flat out contradicted the errors you put forth.

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that published books don't guaranty proper use of language or grammatical correctness (whatever that might be).

What that might be is what you don't have a good grasp of. You quote some dorky thing you grabbed off the internet, with attribution, and who did you end up with, was it the Grammar Girl? Jesus, Ragman.

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What you or anyone else may think of rules of grammar and when to apply them might vary.

That was my point. You don't understand what grammar is so how in the hell can you be expected to know how and when they are to be applied.

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As has been stated ad nauseum, when formal speech and casual speech are useful and the degrees in between.

You didn't do that. You failed miserably in your attempt to do that.

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The OP wanted to know the proper usage of set vs sat . That purpose has been served.

Who determined that, you or the Grammar Girl?

1 Reply

@smarch,

Quote:

I thought an editor was to check the grammar among other things in a book.

You are making an assumption much much too large, Smarch. There's nothing about being an editor that ensures the person knows much of anything about grammar.

Quote:

Grammar Puss

Steven Pinker

...

The legislators of "correct English," in fact, are an informal network of copy-editors, dictionary usage panelists, style manual writers, English teachers, essayists, and pundits. Their authority, they claim, comes from their dedication to implementing standards that have served the language well in the past, especially in the prose of its finest writers, and that maximize its clarity, logic, consistency, elegance, precision, stability, and expressive range. William Safire, who writes the weekly column "On Language" for the [New York Times Magazine], calls himself a "language maven," from the Yiddish word meaning expert, and this gives us a convenient label for the entire group.

To whom I say: Maven, shmaven! [Kibbitzers] and [nudniks] is more like it. For here are the remarkable facts. Most of the prescriptive rules of the language mavens make no sense on any level. They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball reasons several hundred years ago and have perpetuated themselves ever since. For as long as they have existed, speakers have flouted them, spawning identical plaints about the imminent decline of the language century after century.

All the best writers in English have been among the flagrant flouters. The rules conform neither to logic nor tradition, and if they were ever followed they would force writers into fuzzy, clumsy, wordy, ambiguous, incomprehensible prose, in which certain thoughts are not expressible at all. Indeed, most of the "ignorant errors" these rules are supposed to correct display an elegant logic and an acute sensitivity to the grammatical texture of the language, to which the mavens are oblivious.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html

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@JTT,

Quote:

You quote some dorky thing you grabbed off the internet, with attribution,

EDIT

That should have been

You quote some dorky thing you grabbed off the internet, without attribution,

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@Ragman,

Quote:

Like lay, the verb set requires an object.

Your source, the Grammar Girl knows as much about English as you do, Ragman.

She got lay-lie wrong, too.

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@Ragman,

Quote:

Your comment shows you've misinterpreted what I've written.

Has Contrex also misinterpreted what you've written, Ragman?

1 Reply

@JTT,

JTT wrote:

Has Contrex also misinterpreted what you've written, Ragman?

I see at least somebody has read my post.

1 Reply

incorrect use of sat?

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