Where do you stand on ‘I was sat’?

Perhaps because more and more BBC radio programmes are being broadcast from Salford, the whole of Britain is getting used to hearing multiple uses of the expression ‘I was sat’ or ‘I was stood’. Often, those words come at the very beginning of programmes, spoken by the presenter to set the scene. ‘I’m sat in a crowded pub’, ‘I’m sat in the back of a van on a lay-by’, ‘I’m stood in the rain on the outskirts of Oldham, waiting for…’

To those who live south of the Watford Gap services, this simply sounds grammatically wrong. It’s a misuse of the passive voice. It should be ‘I was sitting’ or ‘I was standing’. The one occasion when it might be correct to say ‘I was sat’ would be when describing where the hostess had placed you at a wedding breakfast: ‘I was sat next to the bride’s uncle.’ That’s ‘I was sat’ in the true passive voice for which it was intended, describing someone actively being sat down by someone else.