Saw a small roadside sign today with that message “Your dog needs trained”, then “Honest Bob’s Obedience School” and a phone number. So far, so ordinary, but it got me to thinking.
I’ve heard other people and seen other writings using that same idiomatic form; namely leaving the normal “to be” out of the sentence.
Does anyone know what this idiom style is called? Or where it’s common in the US? Or anything else at all about it?
I wondered whether it was just a transliteration from another language where it would be correct mainstream grammar, but that doesn’t seem to fit what I think I know about the history & geography of this style.
Yeah, I think it was Pennsylvania where people say it like that. I don’t like it much; my car doesn’t “needs” washed; it needs TO BE washed. And it doesn’t need to be “warshed” either.
I also understand it to be Pittsburgh dialect: “The room needs red up”; “The car needs washed”; etc. I believe it originates from the Pennsylvania Dutch (which actually means Deutsch/German).
Northern West Virginia (where I’m originally from) does it too. Then again, that’s an area heavily influenced by the local Pittsburgh dialect.
I never noticed anything odd about that sentence construction until I moved away and had it pointed out. But that began a discussion in which coworker from Indiana said you hear it in parts of that state occasionally, too.
In Southeast Michigan here, and have never heard anyone speak that way. I’ve read other threads about it here, and I think I like it. Maybe I’ll take it up.
Means to straighten up the room, neaten it, tidy it, prepare it for dinner, or for guests, or something. I have always assumed it was short for “readied up”.
My professor recently wrote an article on this particular construction. She is a speaker of the dialect where this is acceptable (U.S. midland region - Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, etc.).
The article can be found here, but you’d have to pay for it. The abstract might give you a reasonable amount of info though, depending on how interested you really are.
The previous thread suggested it originated as a Scots/Irish thing, which rings true for me. My Scottish girlfriend does it all the time, as did an Irish former colleague.
The dishes need put away. The car needs washed. My room needs cleaned. All common in my Hoosier household. Sometimes “to be” would be put in, but it just makes it sound more formal, like saying “do not” instead of “don’t.” My mom is from PA, dad is local. Curiously, my dad says warshed but not my mom. He’s third generation German.
I accept that this is a dialect, but it just sounds bone ignorant to me. I’d recommend speakers from the area to be careful using it outside of the home/immediate vicinity. The ears of the educated can only take so much.
I question the Pennsylvania Deutsch origins of it - I grew up in a Mennonite town in Saskatchewan, and no one said anything like this. They’d say, “Throw the cow over the fence some hay,” but not, “The cow needs milked.” These were people who spoke more Low German than they spoke English. I realize Pennsylvania Amish are different from Saskatchewan Mennonites, but they are both German-speaking groups from the same area (as far as I know).