This is driving me nuts! I keep running across this, especially on eBay, for some reason: the use of the verb “need” with a past-tense verb. For example:
“This is a very nice platter but needs polished”
or
“The hinge on the lid needs replaced”
It just sounds WRONG to me. When I read things like this, I kind of get that “chewing on tinfoil” feeling. This site http://www.hio.ft.hanze.nl/thar/grgerund.htm
says that one may use either to+infinitive or the gerund form (ends in -ing) to follow the verb “need”, depending whether it is active or passive:
When did it become OK to leave out “to” or “to be” altogether? And why is it only done with inanimate objects? I’ve never heard anyone say:
“People who talk like that need killed.”
or
“I think you need shut up.”
In summary, JUST STOP IT! STOP IT, I SAY! I am hold my breath until people start using infinitives and/or gerunds again.
I hate to tell you this, blowero, but that’s a common usage in many areas of the U.S. Eccentric and regional, as far as I know, but definitely not rare, and not incorrect. It is used with verbs other than “need,” but only used in the construction you’ve seen: SUBJECT + VERB + (TO BE) + PAST PARTICIPLE. It would never be used with the constructions you listed as “I’ve never seen…”; it is definitely used with people: “Blowero needs spanked,” “Nametag needs taken down a peg.”
You need to start logging the locations of the authors of that construction. I have noticed a number of people from the areas surrounding Pittsburgh, PA and Akron and Canton, OH who speak this way. Interestingly, when Clevelanders do it, I generally find that they either grew up in or lived for a long period in one of the aforementioned areas. I would be curious as to its current extent* as well as discovering how it originated.
*It may even be limited to specific neighborhoods in those areas, since it does not seem to be a majority of the inhabitants who speak that way, although it is frequently found there.
Hey! We’ve got ourselves a Prescriptivist Grammarian!
There is nothing inherently lazy in that construction and I know a number of educated people who speak that way. I’m not sure when regionalism slide into dialect, but if enough people are using it, it does tend to stop being incorrect.
What tom said is correct. This is very common in Pittsburgh.
I used to do this all the time, not even realizing that it was not correct. I had to get out of Pittsburgh and even then it took a couple years of the lady harping on me everytime I did it to break me of the habit.
I’m all for the evolution of language, but not when it evolves in stupid ways. “Lawn needs mowed?” Gah. Who let this crap get started? I blame it on the lack of ruler-wileding grammar nuns in our nation’s schools.
