0

We'd best head inland and set up a base camp. Once we're situated, we'll pick up Illidan's trail.

This is a dialogue from a video game. The player has just come to an island after a sailing and want to continue his game by first establishing a base camp.

What does be situated mean in this sentence? I'd guess it means settled in this context, but I cannot find a similar explanation in any dictionary. Beside, the usage of be situated is that it always combined with some modification showing the location something is situated or how a thing is situated (eg: well/badly). But there is none in this sentence, does the speaker drop it?

Improve this question
6
  • Yes, it should be: once we've settled in.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 17:28
  • @Lambie Who says it "should be"? There are plenty of different ways of saying the same thing - as Shakespeare and thousands of others have thankfully made clear. This is the beauty of English over some other languages. "Situated" is perhaps not the word I'd have chosen, but I see little wrong with it. The speaker perhaps, for some nuanced purpose believes it captures his meaning more accurately.
    – WS2
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 17:51
  • 1
    @WS2 I think it is incorrectly used, so I say it, as a long time editor working in the English language. Maybe I'm being picayune but that is my opinion. You settle into a place when you arrive at it. You don't situate at that place. However, if you are lost: "We'll call you once we're situated". [Once we can tell you where we are]. It's easy to say there are different ways to say the same thing. Conversely, there are also things that cannot be said a particular way...
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 17:56
  • I think it's a slightly unusual, possibly slangy use of the word, but it reads OK to me. It just means "once we're in place", after all.
    – stangdon
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 18:24
  • @Lambie Is the intransitive use the thing that's troubling you? The OED entry on the verb admittedly only has one intransitive sense, with no example more recent than the 17th C. But the way it is used here, is sufficiently close to the transitive senses that I for one would not hesitate to use it like that - should the spirit so dictate. And "settled-in" doesn't actually mean the same thing as "situated" to my mind. One could be situated without having settled in.
    – WS2
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 21:04

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

It is a rather unusual use of the normal sense of the word: "be in a particular place". You are right that this normally is followed by a prepositional phrase like "in China" or "on the street", but that isn't absolutely required. So here it means "situated in base camp" (and implicitly "ready to explore")

Improve this answer
4
  • So do you think the sentence has the sense of non-native? or it's just a bit formal/literary?
    – preachers
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 17:33
  • @preachers I am not clear on what is "formal" and what is "literary" - and whether it would help us to know if either of those words were applicable. But I believe in this instance the word "situated" has been employed by someone who chooses their words carefully to express the meaning they intend.
    – WS2
    Commented Jul 1, 2022 at 6:15
  • I think is, perhaps military. I'd expect the speaker to be the kind of person who talks about oh-nine-hundred hours and 5-clicks.
    – James K
    Commented Jul 1, 2022 at 18:49
  • @JamesK Interesting point. I would agree.
    – WS2
    Commented Jul 3, 2022 at 11:54
1

I interpret this as synonymous with "Once we have our bearings". In other words, in the process of setting up base camp, we will no longer be just sort of lost in the wilderness, we will have some understanding of our surroundings, and our base camp will become a reference point for further exploration.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .