Unless they’re singing Rule Britannia
I don’t think that particualr usage is increasing.
It’s always been a regionalism; within its home region, it’s “normal” typical everyday speech. IOW it is correct, and the “needs to be fixed” version is seen as stuffy, archaic, & wordy. And wrong.
What’s different today vs. e.g. 1980 is that people everywhere are more exposed to regionalisms from regions not their own. You never heard / saw it before the advent of the WWW connected your region with their region.
In my personal case I moved to a fringe area of that region a few years before the general public got on the WWW. Prior to my move I had never even read about the existence of such an abomination, much less encountered it in the wild. Then the next week suddenly about 10% of the public around me was using it all day everyday. WTF?
The Dope exposes us to regionalisms from every region on Earth where English is commonly spoken. The rest of the WWW may not be quite that cosmopolitan, but it’s leaning that way.
Yeah; Brit is often used in perjorative contexts, such as ‘bloody Brits getting pissed and causing mayhem in Ibiza’. Try to avoid it if you are not talking about yobbos.
No, that’s standard Scots dialect. Try watching Taggart for a bit if you want to hear unusual constructions.
I’m from that region, and “needs to be fixed” is not wrong. Though it might, depending on context, be stuffy and wordy.
What region?
Is that what you’re referring to, LSLGuy? That’s not a typical dialect in Cincinnati where I’ve heard “needs fixed.” Admittedly I haven’t heard it often here, but I’d never heard it at all until recently. There’s plenty of other weird regionalisms here, but those are outside the scope of this thread.
I had no idea it was also used in Scotland. I’m familiar with it from the general Ohio river valley and west into Missouri.
Scroll down for a map of where it’s most common as of a few years ago.
Oh cool, thanks for linking that map. Interestingly the highest prevalence roughly follows the “Midlands” culture from Collin Woodard’s “American Nations” book. That’s more of an English Quaker and Pennsylvania Dutch influence versus “Greater Appalachia” which is based on Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowland settlers. I suspect the close proximity of those groups explains the crossover of that particular regionalism.
Happy to help.
If you’re curious about other regionalisms in US English, that whole site is a treasure trove of knowledge and trivia.
I liked American Nations when it came out.
I don’t think it has aged all that well. Between increased mobility of the urbanized population, the regression of the rural population, and the overall growth of online communities of interest regardless of geography, IMO those same ideas applied to 2025 USA would result in very different maps & just-so stories to justify them.
I realize this is an American centric message board, but the rest of the world doesn’t conform to our definitions. Japanese,Chinese, Koreans all self identify as such. They don’t identify as this American concept as “Asian”. Like they are all one big happy “Asian” family.
Same goes for Africans, Europeans, and Latin Americans.
Has it increased in prevalence or have you just noticed it more? I’ve always thought that particular… um… use of English was confined to certain geographical areas of the US (perhaps Midwest-ish, maybe southern and eastern parts of the Midwest?). Has it escaped the quarantine area and infected heretofore healthy Americans??
I dated a woman in college who suffered from that malady. I shouldn’t blame the victim but that drove me up the wall.
ETA—Oh golly jeeze-o-pete. I see LSL Guy said much the same thing. Well… I LIVED it, man. I was in the TRENCHES face-to-face with it every day (in Indianapolis decades ago, where it was not super-common but it was the “Big City” that various practitioners of the usage may have traveled to.)
When you’re firmly within the quarantine zone, you’re subjected to some of these alternate pronunciations (mostly from old-timers).
Cincinnati = SIN-suh-NAD-uh instead of SIN-suh-NAT-ee
Miamisburg = my-AM-uhz-burg instead of my-AM-eez-burg
I even heard someone use my-AM-uhz-burg and SIN-suh-NAT-ee in the same sentence. My head about exploded.