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When I was in high school I had a very good friend who had moved to the US from Spain; one of her parents was Portuguese and the other was Spanish. English was not her native language, but you'd never know it from the way she spoke, with absolutely no accent. I mention her background because it's pertinent to this particular pet peeve of mine: the misuse of stood for stayed. When she would describe an incident where she had stayed somewhere, she would say it like this: "I stood at my friend's house overnight Saturday." And my brain would be thinking, "HUH?! Why on earth would she STAND UP all night long at her friend's house?" I quickly realized that she meant stayed, but every time she said it, it continued to affect me kind of like nails on a blackboard!
Over the years I've heard a lot of people say stood when they mean stayed, and something I've noticed is that--almost without exception--they're usually Hispanic or, occasionally, black. I don't know WHY they use the past tense of stand for the past tense of stay, but they do, and it annoys me. As noted in previous posts, I watch Judge Judy every day. There have been numerous times when people appearing on the show have said something along the lines of: "I stood in my car while my friend went in to get her purse." Of course, I envision them STANDING UP in the car...which must be difficult, unless they're very, very short!
So here we go: If you're referring to something that involved a stay somewhere, you STAYED there. If you're referring to something that involved standing somewhere, you STOOD there. Stayed and stood are not synonyms and they are not interchangeable. If you say you stood in your car while your friend went inside, that means you were STANDING UP in the car.
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