🚀 go-pugleaf

******  The following is a COPY  *****************************
From: "R.S. Hunt" <R.S.Hunt@newcastle.ac.uk>
Message-Id: <AA01038.199208061549.ttyq5@turing.ncl.ac.uk>
Subject: needs washed
To: lucas@WATSON.IBM.COM
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 16:49:53 WET DST
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]

This was intended to be a posting to sci.lang in reply to your message, but
it seems we cannot post anything from the University right now, for reasons
which are not presently clear.   If you could post it for me I would be
grateful.

In Message-ID: <9208052111.AA20375@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, Date: 5 Aug 92,
21:11:37 GMT, 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.  However,
> I have found that many on the East Coast find this construction
> odd, preferring instead "The car needs to be washed" or "The car
> needs washing" (although for some reason they find "Your grammar
> needs improved" acceptable and occasionally even delightful :-)
>
> I believe that this construction is simply "needs to be + past participle"
> with the "to be" omitted, and seems analogous to me to some similar
> constructs involving "want + past participle" (omitting "to be") that
> I have heard easterners use.  I have heard speakers from as far east
> as the Amish country of central Pennsylvania use the "needs washed"
> construct, and believe (but would not swear) that I once heard a
> New Zealander use it.  I would be interested in any comments the
> readers of this newsgroup might have on the origin and extent of
> this construct.

Some time ago a character in the TV series "thirtysomething", which was
set in Philadelphia, used this construction and was immediately asked by
one of the other characters if she came from Pittsburgh.   This tends to
support the view that it is used in Pennsylvania but not many other
places.

However, I live in Cumbria in North-west England, and the construction
is very widely used there, particularly in West Cumbria.    It strikes me
that Pittsburgh is historically a steel town, as is Workington, one of
the two chief towns of West Cumbria, where there has long been a shortage
of employment and hence emigration.   Could steelworkers from Workington
have been among those who set up the steel industry in Pittsburgh, and
have taken this particular mode of speech with them?

Comments would be appreciated from knowledgeable Pennsylvanians in
particular.

Thanks,  Richard.
--
Richard Hunt                                JANET : R.S.Hunt@uk.ac.newcastle
MSc Course in Computing Science
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
UK

               "Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto."
                     - Terence, c.190-159 B.C. -