Accepting the rebuke, but not taking it sitting down? (8,9)

'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 in the answer.
'rebuke' could be 'correct' (correcting is a kind of rebuking) and 'correct' is found in the answer.
'it' could be 'sa' (old-fashioned abbreviation for sex appeal) and 'sa' is located in the leftover letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?