I think of the difference as being 'take up' a seat (not in the sense of pick up, but in the sense of fill up), and 'have use of' a seat as taking advantage of the opportunity to sit down. In the first, the sense (as borne out by your ngram examples) is of seats being provided specifically for people to use - in a waiting room, an Argos store ...

Apr 2, 2016 · Typically native English speakers greatly prefer take/have a seat (hence my jumping up and down). "Take a sit" is a common idiomatic mistake made by non-native English speakers. Idioms are often the hardest and last English concept English language learners master. Unlike grammar, idioms don't have a structure, logic, or pattern.

I've reserved a seat at the table. Note that this version is slightly ambiguous in that it doesn't specify for whom you've reserved the seat (you could have very well reserved it for a friend or loved one, for instance). If you want to be really explicit, say: I've reserved a …

May 14, 2015 · And let's not forget indisputably valid usages such as We each of us have our faults. It takes some doing to figure out exactly why the presence of the apparently optional we there precludes us from continuing with the equally valid (as a complete sentence) Each of us has his faults (I'm guessing it's because the actual subject is plural we and ...

Dec 14, 2015 · It means the same thing to refer to it as the seat itself, or the seat that belongs to someone in that position. I think you may correctly say: A group of actors needs to take the driver seat. You could also use the possessive form if you prefer: After agreeing to fund the the new production themselves, the actors were in the driver's seat.

You could use "Have a seat" in a commanding or threatening manner, or "Sit down" in a jovial, offering manner. In pure text with no voice though, a straight command like "Sit down" would be more forceful than "Take a seat" which in turn would be more forceful than "Have a seat." –

Sep 17, 2011 · The use was then adapted in the 1960s (according to the OED) to refer to the front seat of any car. There is no strict date on when "calling shotgun" came into use, but I suspect it came after the 1960s, once the use of shotgun referred to the front passenger seat of a car.

Sep 20, 2015 · The other day, I sent my partner a text explains that 'I would rather be sat in the pub drinking a beer' to which I was corrected that I should have used 'sitting' instead of 'sat'. I'm pretty sure both are proper English but she disagrees and says using 'sat' is lazy. Help!

The seat where the judges sit in court; the judge's seat, or seat of justice; hence, the office or dignity of a judge, as in ‘to be raised to the bench’. Their citations date back to 1275 and then to Henry IV Part 2 v.ii.85 Related uses from 1280 in French per the OED refer to it at as the seat of justice and in both English and French to ...

From the usages in the media I have seen, this convention also seems to contain some moral concept which is not described in dictionaries. For me, it looks like by calling dibs (or shotgun), the caller actually receives the (implicit, moral) right to that resource, and this typically goes undisputed by their rivals.