| 词组 | set, sit |
| 释义 | set, sit Originally set was the causative verb corresponding to the intransitive sit and meant "to cause to sit." But as early as the early 14th century set began to be used as an intransitive equivalent to sit. Sit itself, as if in retaliation, later took on the sense of "to cause to sit" from set. Given that these interchanges between the two words had several centuries' head start on the lexicographers, grammarians, and teachers who have since tried to disentangle them, it is a wonder that things are as relatively simple as they are today. The intransitive sense of set meaning "to be seated" is at the present time considered dialectal or uneducated; it is in general a socially marked usage. This state of affairs must be considered a relative victory for schoolteachers and writers of school textbooks, even though they have failed to extinguish the usage. Dr. Johnson in his 1755 Dictionary said that set meaning "to sit" was "commonly used in conversation" and "though undoubtedly barbarous, is sometimes found in authors." But other 18th-century commentators appear not to have been bothered by the usage. The OED even quotes Thomas Jefferson using it in 1788: • It is very possible that the President and the new Congress may be setting at New York. Noah Webster, whose 1828 dictionary made heavy use of Johnson, simply omitted Johnson's sense, perhaps because Johnson's illustration, from Shakespeare's Cor-iolanus (1608), was for a specialized meaning of set (or sit) down having to do with laying a siege; Webster may have thought it too unusual to bother with. The battle was left to the teachers, textbooks, and handbooks. Textbooks, especially: Malmstrom 1964, which compares the findings of the linguistic atlases with textbooks, reports 170 textbooks that treat set and sit from nine different viewpoints. The linguistic atlas researchers found set "to sit" in the speech of high school graduates and some college graduates in large areas along the Atlantic seaboard; these findings (along with British evidence) are the basis for calling the usage dialectal. It is presumably this oral use that Pyles 1979 notes as having been heard during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954: • Actually, members of this Committee set in a semi-judicial capacity —Senator Charles E. Potter, Michigan • You've let them set there and testify day after day — Senator John McClellan, Arkansas But set "to sit" is also typical of less educated and more rural people. English writers of the 19th century— Dickens and Thackeray are cited in the OED—put set in the mouths of their more countrified and less educated characters. American writers have done the same: • I seen then it wasn't so Offul Urgent about me agoin', after all, so I set still, not reely wantin' to Rile him —Frank W. Sage, D.D.S., Dental Digest, November 1902 • I had set next to him at so many Speakers Tables, at banquets —Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest, 1924 • This is a great big yard with a whole lot of benches strewed round it, but you can't set on them in the daytime —Ring Lardner, The Big Town, 1921 • We had a visitor the other day, an old man, who said he wouldn't go to Europe if they gave it to him. Said a feller went over there and set down on some steps he seen in front of a church. Another feller came along and held out his hand. First one said, What for now? Feller holding out his hand said, Step rent — Flannery O'Connor, letter, 1953 A few other issues have been raised within the context of the general set-sit controversy. Bache 1869 has this entry in his chapter on the use of the wrong verb: Set is often used for sit; as, "Set down for a moment." The sun sets, but a human being sits. A hen is generally said to set, but she does not—she sits. The question of whether a hen sits or sets has persisted longer than you might suppose—Jean Malmstrom found it in six of her 170 textbooks. In print, OED evidence shows sit to be some 500 years earlier than set— but we do not know how old the oral use of set might be. In any case, nowadays saying that a hen sets is considered standard. Richard Grant White 1870 spent several pages etymologizing in order to rationalize why the sun sets, rather than sits. Few people since have been concerned about the sun setting. Whether clothing sets or sits well was another issue around the turn of the century, commented upon again as recently as Evans 1961. As with the setting hen, OED evidence shows that clothes were sitting before they were setting, at least in print. But set is the usage of tailors; it appears no longer to be disputed. Baker 1770 disapproved the transitive use of sit: "I'll sit you down—He sat her down—They sat us down— are not proper." The use is fully standard today: • She sat me in a claw-foot tub and gave me a bath — E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, 1979 • I got Loretta on the train and sat her down by a stern-looking man —Flannery O'Connor, letter, July 1952 The transitive sit is, in fact, so standard that the original transitive set is felt to be dialectal in this use. The character speaking here is a Southerner: • ... I turned just as two men arrived at the table. "Set yourself down!" Red greeted them —E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, 1979 The origin of the intransitive set is explained by the OED editor Henry Bradley as developing naturally from reflexive and passive uses of the transitive. A stranger explanation, however, is offered by Paul Fussell, who in The Boy Scout Handbook (1982) asserts that unconscious inhibition causes set to replace sit, "lest," he says, "low excremental implications be inferred." Not plausible, perhaps, but entertainingly original. In summary, set for sit is primarily a spoken use; it is considered dialectal or uneducated; it is generally not used in writing except to represent the speech of characters who would use it naturally. Some intransitive uses of set have become fully standard: the sun sets, a hen sets, and so do jelly, plaster and concrete; clothes may set or sit on the wearer. The transitive sit is also fully standard. |
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