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Lesson Transcript

This is the verb to sit, which can just mean to rest, but watch until the end and learn six other ways to use it.
Hi, everybody.
Welcome back to Know Your Verbs.
My name is Alisha, and in this video, we're going to talk about the verb sit.
Let's get started.
First, let's look at the basic definition of this verb.
To sit means to rest on the buttocks or to rest on your butt.
Here are some examples.
You can sit in that chair.
He sat next to me.
Okay, now let's take a look at the conjugation of this verb.
Present tense, sit, sits.
Past tense, sat.
Past participle, sat.
Progressive, sitting.
Now let's talk about some additional meanings of this verb.
The first additional meaning is to please or to agree with someone.
Here are some examples.
The new policy did not sit well with stakeholders.
That dessert is sitting heavy in my stomach.
This use of sit describes a feeling of agreement or more commonly disagreement.
We tend to use this use of sit when we want to explain that somebody did not agree with something or something like food did not agree with us, like with our body.
In that sense, it's kind of like we're talking about the effect of something on our condition.
In the first example where we talk about something like a new policy not sitting well with stakeholders, that means the stakeholders did not agree with the new policy or the stakeholders did not feel it was such a good idea.
It sounds like there's some disagreement in that situation.
In the second example situation, it's the same thing, but we have an effect on the body.
We use this when we talk about food and drink a lot.
In this sentence, when we say, that dessert is sitting heavy in my stomach, it sounds
like I just ate some dessert, it went to my stomach, and now it doesn't feel so good.
Another way that we express this is that that thing disagreed with me.
This is another way to say that.
That thing is sitting heavy in my stomach.
Sounds like it feels really heavy in my stomach, and also, therefore, it disagrees with me.
This use of sit tends to be used a lot more in the negative, and you see it a lot in policy and rule discussions, and when we're talking about our experiences with food and drink.
The second meaning is to take a position for a photo or portrait painting.
Here are some examples.
The president sat for her official portrait.
My friend asked me to sit for a few test photos.
This use of sit is specifically when we want to pose for something or we need to pose for something.
These days, we typically use sit to talk about photos.
We don't have many portrait options these days, but maybe if you're the president of a country or the president of a major organization, you might see this used or you might read about it in the news, that the president sat for a portrait, like a painting-style portrait instead of just a photo.
When we sit for something, we just sit in a chair like this, and someone takes our photo or someone paints a portrait of us.
We use the expression to sit, and when we use it in this way, we have this for preposition at the end, to sit for a portrait or to sit for a photo.
We don't use sit a photo or sit a portrait.
We always need to use the preposition for when we use this form of sit.
The same thing is true in the second example sentence.
My friend asked me to sit for a few test photos, means my friend asked me to come sit down and pose for a few test photos, but the verb to sit is like a very efficient way to say all of that, like come, sit, pose for a few photos.
We can just say sit to make that more efficient.
Great.
The next additional meaning is to lie or to hang relative to the object's location.
Here are some examples.
The decorations are sitting oddly on the shelf.
I love the way her hair is sitting on her shoulder.
In this use of sit, we're talking about things that lie or things that hang on other things.
We often use this when we're talking about our personal style, for example, clothes or hairstyle or accessories like bags, for example.
We might also use this use of sit when we're talking about things we have in our house, something is sitting over there, that decoration sat over there for a long time.
When we talk about something that we put in our house, we might use sit when we want to talk about it.
We see this in the first example sentence.
The decorations are sitting oddly on the shelf.
In this sentence, maybe the speaker sees the decorations in the house and notices they're crooked.
There are a lot of really crooked decorations and they want to fix them.
They might notice that.
They're sitting oddly over there, let me fix that.
This is how we might use it to talk about objects in our house or in our office.
In the second example, like I said, we use it to talk about our personal style.
I love the way her hair is sitting on her shoulder.
Maybe she has a nice hairstyle and the person wants to comment on this part of her hair.
We're talking about the hair sitting.
If that's helpful, kind of like when we sit in a chair, you can imagine that that object
sits on top of another object, like the hair sits on top of a shoulder in this case, or the bag sits on top of her arm, that kind of thing.
You can kind of imagine that the object is resting on someone if that's a helpful way for you to remember this use.
Again, we use this one a lot when we're talking about personal style.
Additional meaning number four is to have a location.
Here are some examples.
The hotel sits on a quiet hillside.
Their house sits a long way from the road.
Okay, this use of sit is used to talk about position.
Usually you hear this when talking about buildings.
In these examples, it's like maybe a cafe, it could be a house, it could be a hotel.
When we want to talk about a specific location for something, we can use sit to describe that.
It's just another way that we can describe the location.
In the first example, when we say the hotel sits on the hillside, it's another way of saying the hotel is located on the hillside.
You might think, like, okay, sit sounds a little bit like the hotel is kind of resting on the hillside.
It might have a little bit of that feeling to it, and in that sense, it might be kind of nice, especially in this kind of hilly, natural environment, but it doesn't always have this meaning.
In the second example sentence, we're just talking about the house's location.
It's another way to describe the location of the house.
Their house sits a long way away from the road.
It just means the house is located a long way away from the road, but sits is a much faster way to say that.
You might hear people using sit when they talk about the locations of buildings.
Great.
Those are all of our additional meanings.
Now let's take a look at some variations.
First is to sit tight.
This means to wait or to maintain a condition.
Here are some examples.
Sit tight.
I'll get back to you by the end of the day.
Let's sit tight until we get more information.
This sit tight is another way to say wait.
You're kind of on standby in this sense.
You're waiting for something to happen.
You want to do something, but you have to wait for information, or you have to wait
for something else to happen.
Maybe you're ready to go, but you need to wait, or you need to just kind of maintain
your condition for a little bit longer.
Someone might say sit tight to mean keep that condition.
I recognize that you are ready.
I recognize that you are there and available, but we need to do something else, or I need to do something else, and then we can continue.
Sit tight generally has kind of a nice group feel about it, like we're all going to do something together, and I recognize you're waiting for something.
I'm also participating, but let's just wait for the time being.
Sit tight can be used to express this feeling of waiting, but maintaining a level of energy.
The second variation is to sit on, as in to sit on something.
This here means to delay action or to delay making a decision.
It can also mean to repress or to not disclose something.
Here are some examples.
They've been sitting on this important information for weeks.
The government sat on the decision for months.
Okay, so in these example sentences, we see the expression to sit on.
When we sit on something, it doesn't always mean sit on a chair or sit on a table.
When we sit on a concept, like a decision or a piece of information, it means that we are waiting to make a decision, or we are waiting to take action, or maybe even we are hiding something or keeping something from someone.
This use depends on the context a little bit.
The first example sentence was, they've been sitting on this important information for weeks.
This sentence feels like they were waiting to reveal this information, or they had this information and they did not reveal it for some reason.
We don't know why in this sentence, but we want to express that we recognize they did not share the information.
You might see this used in the news, maybe as part of scandal reporting or something like that.
When we talk about someone sitting on information, it sounds like they should have revealed that information or that information was important, they did not reveal it for some reason.
The government sat on the decision for months.
This sounds like the government delayed making a decision for some reason.
So people were waiting for a long time, the government did not take action.
So we use sat on, in this case, the past tense, to express that.
So when someone is not forthcoming, someone does not share information readily, or someone takes a long time to make a decision, we might express that with this variation of sit to sit on.
Now you have all of the variations and meanings for this video, now let's review what we've learned in this lesson.
I'll introduce two example sentences that are both correct but that have different meanings of the verb.
Choose the example sentence that matches the meaning in the question.
My lunch isn't sitting well in my stomach.
The office sits on the side of the road.
Which sentence uses the to please or to agree with meaning of sit?
The answer, my lunch isn't sitting well in my stomach.
This sentence uses the to please or to agree with use of sit in the negative form.
Please sit over there.
The jacket sits strangely on him.
Which sentence uses the to lie or to hang meaning of sit?
The answer, example two, the jacket sits strangely on him.
This sits means the jacket hangs strangely on his body.
We're going to sit for headshot photos tomorrow.
Sit tight, I'll be right back.
Which sentence uses the pose for a portrait meaning of sit?
The answer, sentence one, we're going to sit for headshot photos tomorrow.
This sentence uses sit for a photo session, which means we're going to go and pose for
a photo.
Our manager's email did not sit well with the team.
They've been sitting on the secret information for a long time.
Which sentence uses the to not disclose or to repress meaning of sit?
The answer, sentence two, they've been sitting on the secret information for a long time.
In this sentence, we see sitting on the information, that's a big hint that this use of sit means to not share or to repress information.
Great, that's the end of this review section and the end of this video.
I hope that you learned a little bit more about the verb to sit and you have some new meanings that you can use from now on.
Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs and I will see you again next time.
Bye.

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