(no subject)

[arethinn]

Does anyone else find past-participle constructions like the following rather odd?

"dinner needs cooked"
"it needs done"
"my shirt needs cleaned"
"essay needs written"

My own idiom wants the present participle: needs cooking, doing, cleaning, writing. The participle is playing the part of a noun here (like saying you need scissors or lunch or anything else), and my language processing center doesn't like the sound of the past participle as a noun. (I know what writings are, but what are writtens?) The cases I can think of where it would seem to be a noun, it's actually a modifier on a noun that's implied: "Would you like scrambled or fried?" (eggs) "The great unwashed" (masses of people).

I'm not passing judgement that it's bad English, but it sounds so wrong to my ear yet so many people do it that I wonder if this is one of those regional habits.

Comments

[dancinglights]

I had a conversation with ravenblack about that once upon a time. He, being British and having lived in OZ and a couple bits of the Eastern US, seems to think it's more of a Britishism. He and I are both bad on grammar terminology, though, and spoke of it as a Brit tendency to leave out an implied [to be] before the participle, and now I'm all confused about the proper terminologies for anything. Arg. I'm better at it in French, having learned that in a classroom, than this mess of a language. I've since picked it up, mostly from him.

[tangyabominy]

...coming from a household where the usual request-style is "can has dinnarz nao?", "you is do that" and similar manglings, some of which aren't even directly lolcat so much as just putting random words where they feel right, I don't think any pidginish permutation of speech sounds strange any more.

[arethinn]

"You can has" and similar constructions are current in my house, too, but that's deliberately pidgin, whereas when people use the "needs done" kind of construction, it never seems to be.

[nytemuse]

Fine, I'll pass the judgment since it's part of my job. That there is bad English. So yeah, I'd agree it's a regional thing, or like dancinglights said about Britishisms.

But then again, I still twitch when someone says "I feel nauseous" or insists to me that "could of" is proper English.

[arethinn]

I use "nauseous" that way. I had to stop and "think fast!" about what would automatically come out of my mouth, heh. I know it's supposed to be "nauseated", but ... it just isn't what my brain produces.

[feyandstrange]

Yeah, that one bothers the heck out of me. Should either be "needs *to be* past tensed" or "needs thinging". Dunno from grammar but dat shit ain't right. If you ain't done it yet, it ain't *done*, it *needs doin'*.

[charcoalfeathers]

My partner does this too. "This needs cooked." It used to drive me up the wall, now I'm just sort of used to it.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

As far as I've been able to tell, it's a southern thing. Really REALLY got on my nerves at first, as a Jersey boy living in Virginia, but I'm getting used to it at this point and I think the usage is actually spreading. I hear people in Maryland now saying it more and more.

[arcanetrivia]

As far as I've been able to tell, it's a southern thing.

windtree does it, though, and dancinglights opined on the DW post that it's a Britishism. Hmm.

The person that sparked this post I think is in Texas but I could be wrong.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, then. I've only heard it since moving to Virginia. Arhuaine & Co never used it as far as I can remember, nor the Junky group, nor my uncle Phillip (actually family friend) from England, nor my father and grandmother who spent time in England before I was born due to my grandfather's military service. Small sampling, I know, but I'd venture to say that if it is a Britishism it may be regional over there too.

[windtree.livejournal.com]

I do? Hrm. I wonder where I picked that up, as I find the construct annoying.

So, no, I don't think it's a Britishism, at least not from where I lived.

"needs doing" vs "needs to be done" is more likely.

[arethinn]

You used to do it, anyway (I remember particularly when setting up OKN for the first time that you spoke of various tasks that "needed done"), but I don't really have a large recent language sample from you to compare with.

edit. speaking of poor grammar

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

hrm. Ravenblack's Scottish to be more particular; it may be regional even there. Now I'm trying to remember if my more Northern English friends do it too....

[arethinn]

Just about everything is regional in the UK *chuckles* I mean, the same is true in the US, but the regions are individually considerably bigger.

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

yeah, that was one of my 'duh' moments yesterday. Science paper is eating my brain.

[scarletscarlet.livejournal.com]

It's strange, huh. For some reason I'm reading that with a Glaswegian sound. Or possibly some sort of broad Northern Vowel :). I cannot at all vouch for the validity of that :).

To me, it seems that rather than needing to be rephrased with "cooking" etc, they're missing "to be", ie "my shirt needs to be cleaned", "dinner needs to be cooked" and so forth.

[arethinn]

Someone mentioned that in a comment on the DW post, and you're right. But if not changing the phrasing in that way, just the participle, my ear wants it to be present and not past.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Well, to the non-native speaker (i.e. learned at school, albeit very young) it sounds wrong, wrong, wrong.

"My shirt needs to be cleaned." "The essay needs to be written."

"Need" is a transitive verb---you don't need in general, you need something, or you have issues---so it needs (heh) a noun. "cleaned" or "written" aren't nouns by themselves.

"Dinner needs cooking" sounds... colloquial, but all right to my ear. You've made a gerund, i.e. a noun.

(Disclaimer: So, so many years have passed since I studied any formal grammar. I might be totally off in my explanation why it sounds wrong. But it raises my hackles nonetheless.)

[elven-ranger.livejournal.com]

it gets on my nerves to be honest