🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug5.224441.10212@u.washington.edu>, bbeer@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Beer) writes:
> In article <9208052111.AA20375@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> lucas@WATSON.IBM.COM ("Bruce Lucas") writes:
>>As a more-or-less native Midwesterner (northeastern Ohio) born of
>>western-Pennsylvania parents, the construct exemplified by
>>"The car needs washed" sounds natural to my ears.
> 
> I grew up in Iowa City, Iowa, and heard it a lot - mostly from rural people
> and not so much from those who had grown up in Iowa City itself.  I remember
> hearing somewhere that it was a Pennsylvania-ism.  Hmm.  There are lots of
> Amish in Iowa and in Pennsylvania - anyone know if we should blame them?  :)
> Also, a large percentage of rural Iowans are of German and Czech backgrounds.
> Maybe it is a more general thing than Amish.  I speak German and am not
> aware of that kind of construction in German, but I don't really know much
> about the non-standard dialects.

Duden lists a construction of _gehoeren_ 'belong' + past participle, listing
the following as an example:

	Wer ueber dreissig ist, gehoert aufgehaengt.
	'Anyone over thirty should be ("belongs") hanged.'

I assume the Amish, if they use the construction, are a bit gentler about
it.  Curme cites it from bad 19th-century novels, commenting that it 
"...is not infrequently found [and] is worthy of attention by reason
of its pithy terseness."

--Leo Connolly

--Leo Connolly