Grammatical correctness is not the arbiter of social correctness. This is my point and you’re not getting it. And saying “it’s racism” if the characteristic i’m discriminating on happens to be shared disproportionately by one group or another does not, in and of itself, make it “racial discrimination”
Racial discrimination is “i hate you because you’re x race”
Racial discrimination is not “i hate you because you sound different than me”. It may be discrimination, but not racial.
edit: you’re just not getting it. the value judgment is not based on “who” speaks the dialect, it’s the value judgment that it’s spoken at all. kid rock is not any more impressive than snoop dogg when they speak.
Again… so? Linguistics does not hold the monopoly on social acceptability. Note, I never suggested that it’s incorrect. Rather, that because it is atypical, it is de facto improper when viewed in the context of social custom and usage.
Now, Woody, that’s a bit of projection, isn’t it? Don’t lash out at others for mistakes of your own — particularly when those mistakes are of the same kind for which you are reprimanding those others.
I do agree with you to a great extent. I know that if I interviewed someone, and they began talking in jive, or rap lingo, or that goddam unnerving New Jersey twang (sorry, New Jersey people) — I would be less inclined to hire them. And it would be even more important in a business where communication is critical. However, my point is that a person can have and maintain a native accent with regionalisms while still being able to communicate reasonably well in the business world (or other situtations in which a standard English facilitates communication).
I don’t really know why you’re being such an asshole about it, but then, I don’t really give a fuck about your attempted “gotcha!” anyway.
No shit you can tell the difference between regionalisms and stupidity. So can I and the HR managers I mentioned. It has more to do with the applicant giving enough of a shit to attempt to speak in a professional manner. If your company doesn’t have such standards, fine.
So if you heard someone use the construction “needs washed” you’d advise against hiring them? Because it shows the speaker didn’t understand American professional business norms and therefore wouldn’t be a good fit for your company? Seriously?
Thing is, my native dialect is standard American television english, not some obscure Appalachian dialect, and “needs washed” sounds perfectly fine to me. The house needs painted, the dog needs fed, the cat needs petted. These constructions don’t sound unnatural or hideous to my west coast TV english standard dialect ears. So you’re saying you’d fire me because I obviously don’t give a shit about being professional? Because I dropped an implied “to be” out of a sentence? Seriously?
I’m saying in an interview, an applicant who spoke in a more professional manner would have the edge over one who didn’t, other qualifications being equal.
ETA: Just as an applicant who showed up well-dressed would make a better impression than one who was dressed casually. These are the things that are the difference between getting a second interview or not, at least where I work.
Personally? Yep. Though I can’t imagine why that phrase would come up in an interview. But yes, as pointed out by many in this thread, it does sound kind of hickish. If you were applying for a job in an area where it was common usage, though, I doubt it would be much of a problem.
What’s the difference? I’m saying that my kid needs to open the door so the cat can exit the building because the cat’s clawing at the door.
Suffer? Really?
And what’s there to know about “youns”? It’s the second-person, plural pronoun. No different than yinz, y’all, or you guys.
In my mind, it functions as a direct object. If you had misheard me and said “The car needs what?”, would you really expect me to say “to be washed”? Doesn’t that sound entirely forced to you? You’d naturally expect me to say “washed”, wouldn’t you? So why the extra, unnecessary “to be”?
Well, would you say “That guy needs laid” or “That guy needs to get laid”? If the latter, does it sound forced to you? I mean, the “to get” is implied, right? To me, the former sounds like caveman talk. It’s perfectly understandable, but it comes across as an uneducated way of saying it, is all.
Then you shouldn’t have ASKED. If you didn’t want to be told that yes, I have been involved in hiring, you shouldn’t have asked if I’ve been involved in hiring.
As for anyone being an asshole, that’s spectacular that you think you can sit there and say other people are unprofessional hicks who sound like shit, but they are the ones who are assholes when they tell you work experience. Is your gauge of your own tone that laughably bad?
Although I don’t speak the particular dialect, “needs washed” sounds fine while “needs laid” doesn’t so much. Thing is, the colloquialism for sex isn’t “to lay”; how often do you hear “I’m going to lay her” these days? “She told me I was a great lay,” sure, but not the verb form. It’s “get laid”: “I’m going to get laid tonight,” “He sounds like he needs to get laid.” You don’t say, “That car looks like it needs to get washed.” You can, but it sounds forced, wouldn’t you say?
The rule as I understand it is that “to be” is omitted. “To get” != “to be”, so it doesn’t get omitted.
Only as bad as your reading comprehension, it seems. I wasn’t attempting any kind of smackdown with my question; I was legitimately asking if you’d been involved in hiring, because every single time I’ve been in that position, language usage counts to those doing the hiring. I don’t even see why this is controversial; the way you present yourself is a major factor in determining whether or not you’ll be hired. Does this contradict most people’s experience? Does it contradict the millions of “How to interview well” books and articles? Holy shit, who knew “If you want to be considered for a professional position, act professional” would cause such a fucking shitstorm? Anyway, your assumption that I didn’t want to be told yes is your own high-horse bullshit. All I wanted to be told was whether people using slang and speaking as if they were hanging out with their drinking buddies was acceptable during a job interview. Apparently with your company, it is.
Where did I say people were unprofessional hicks? I said the perception is going to be that you’re unprofessional if you can’t conduct yourself in what is considered to be a professional manner, for the GODDAMN BILLIONTH TIME. It’s funny how you want to argue with me when I make this point, yet you feel no compunction about using your own perception of what I’m saying to act like a shrill drama queen.
OK, so if that’s the arbitrary cutoff, “That chick needs sedated” or “that guy needs blown until he passes out” sound all right? I honestly can’t tell - is there any case where “to be” doesn’t sound forced to those who say “the car needs washed”?
Unquestionably, yes to the former and no to the latter. “To be washed” is completely natural to me, and “washed” would be weird. Weird like gesticulating at the fridge and saying “beer!” in order to ask someone to bring you a brewski.
Do you really find it that strange that this phrasing not only isn’t natural to, but also grates on, some people?
Well, okay. That’s a couple of questions and comments. I think that if you want to treat it as a direct object, you need a gerund (which is a noun form of a verb). So you need to say something like, “The car needs (a) washing.” The (a) is optional, and simply understood to be there when it’s left out. The article, “a”, is normally included when the direct object is NOT a gerund. Like “The car needs a muffler.” We ordinarily don’t say, “The car needs muffler.” But when the term is a gerund, we often say, “The blank needs blanking.”
Now, the other question is about the participial form: “The car needs (to be) washed.” You’re right that it’s not necessary to say the infinitive. But that’s because the infinitive is understood to apply, whether it’s said or not. So, “The car needs washed” is a perfectly acceptable way to say it. Just like any other participial phrase. Like “The piano needs tuned.” The prescriptivists might cringe, but so what. Let them cringe. They’ve been cringing for thousands of years as language has evolved.
As a matter of interest, Nobel laureate, F.A. von Hayek, (who, incidentally proved deductively that socialism cannot work as an economic system, based upon the conclusion that government could not effectively set prices) wrote on the issue of language. He said that it was a prime example of what he called “spontaneous order” — order arising despite the lack of any central control or command. (The French L’Académie française notwithstanding.)
Living in Baltimore, as I do, at the cusp of the football season, anything from Pittsburgh is bad. But, although it grates on my ears a bit, it’s no big deal. My boss uses it and although I could tease him about it without fear, I don’t. It’s just the way he talks.
