🚀 go-pugleaf

>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.

I took a dialects course in Lancaster (amish tourist center...) from
a linguist trained at Penn State (middle of the state/middle of nowhere)
who was a native speaker from western PA.  His name is Kaen Shields, and 
he has published some stuff on south central and western PA dialects.
From memory,  most of the constructions which get labelled as PA Dutch/Amish
(but not all) are actually from the Northern English/Scots(?)-Irish,
who arrived earlier in greater numbers and spoke to lots more people 
(and probably not as politely;> ) at an earlier time and moved West in 
large enough amounts to be partly responsible for a voice in the 
dialect formation of the area...My bet is that it is Scots-Irish
in its dialectal origin, but gets called "Amish" in Lancaster County 
because most of the Scots-Irish here drive cars instead of buggies
and attract very few tourists:>.  So I would hasve to side with the two 
people from the North of England and Scotland on this one.--other
Scots-Irish-isms which get attributed to the Amish include
"red up (clean) the room."  "outen (turn off) the lights."
Best, 
Rich Rath


>--
>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. -