It’s going to rain tomorrow so the car will need washing the day after.
It rained yesterday so the car needs washing (it is dirty right now).
Everyone I work with talks like that. It is driving me insane. Except they add an extra layer to the fun by making it into “needs warshed”.
Shoot me.
I need to get my hair did too.
“washing” is the present participle used with continual aspect, as in “am walking” or “is reading”. “Washed” is for completed aspect, such as “has walked” or “will have read”. Completed makes sense, continual does not. I’m right, and yinz ‘r’ all wrong.
Down here in the South, we just say, “You need to wash your damn car.”
Nonsense. I don’t have a southern accent!
Actually, that’s to friends and family. To acquaintances and Yankees, we say somethine more passive-aggressive, like “Oh, I love your car. What color was it?”
What, pray tell, is a dished?
Are “needs to be washed” and “needs washing” actually incorrect grammar uses? “Needs warshed” sounds all goofy and wonky to me.
Go a couple hundred miles east of Pittsburgh and we just say, “Wash your fucking car, you disgusting jackass.”
(The OP is a joke, right?)
All right, for anyone still confused about my intent here:
I’m tired of using a perfectly sensible dialect that I’ve used my entire life and being corrected on it. Currently, I live in D.C., but I’m originally from Pittsburgh. “Needs Xed” or “wants Xed” sounds correct to me and “Xing” sounds idiotic. And “to be” is as optional as that in the sentence “I spent the money that I earned.”
My dialect is recognized. It’s standard where I come from. And as I hoped to argue (as much as one can argue over usage) that it makes sense. So I parodied those people that claim their usage is “right” and mine is “wrong”. So I wrote the equally valid claim that I am right and everyone else is wrong. Instead of putting it in GD where nothing productive could’ve come of it, or putting it in IMHO where I already knew the outcome, I put it in the Pit becaues it pisses me off to no end that I’m surrounded by grammar nazis that think I’m speaking this way out of ignorance. Half of them, if asked to name a part of speech, would guess “the tongue?” So there.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled pointless, baseless assertions about language.
Edit, never mind.
Needs more ranted.
No its not, that only works for linking/state of being verbs. Needs is an action verb and washing is a gerund.
Maybe if you answered them right back, complete with condescension but without rancor. Maintain decorum and say, “My car doesn’t need washing, thanks. But I do, as I have fallen on hard times. I’m even willing to iron. Do you have anything that needs washed or ironed?”
That’s right Has to be. It’s the object.
Add another vote for “Wash the car.”
“This needs doing” sounds to me like you could just as easily do it, yet have not.
So fuck you, ya lazy jackass.
No, I think it’s “my hair needs did.”
Seriously, has the OP never heard of Standard English? You can talk your dialect all you want, but it’s not Standard English.
They are both grammatically correct since they follow Subject->Action->Object.
This car needs to be washed:
Subject: car
Action: needs
Object : to be (infinitive)
(“washed” is a participle adjective describing “to be” indicating that the car needs to be in a state where washing has already occurred)
This car needs washing:
Subject: car
Action: needs
Object: washing (gerund)
Needs Washed sounds goofy because it is not a Standard English sentence pattern. Despite its usage in certain dialects.
I also laughed. Well, technically I snorted in a very unattractive manner and then laughed.
It’s needs warshed.