Accepting the rebuke, but not taking it sitting down? (8,9)
I believe the answer is:
standing corrected
'sitting down?' is the definition.
The definition suggests an adjective which matches the answer.
'accepting the rebuke but not taking it' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found within the answer.
'rebuke' could be 'correct' (correcting is a kind of rebuking) and 'correct' is present in the answer.
'it' could be 'sa' (old-fashioned abbreviation for sex appeal) and 'sa' is found in the remaining letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?