“Needs washed” has spread far from PA. Knew a fellow who said “you-uns;” he also regularly said
“anymore” for “nowadays.” (would just “now” be better?) What gets me is, “if I would have gone yesterday” when they mean “If I had gone.” And “all of us aren’t going (but some are)” when they mean “not all of us.”
Ugly, but not unintelligble.
Ok, I just started a new game. I got most of the mods except the career one as I want to learn how to do careers on my own. I just got 2 sims in the hot tub. I have a household of 8 sims; 4 girls and 4 guys. Two got in the hot tub and made out using the makeout thingy. They got the romantic interest lit up now. With this thing going on, if they pursue another relationship, the other gets jealous and all my sims will have hearts on them. How can I undo this, much thanks for any help.
How did I do that? Magic? No, it’s just english. Really, it’s not even that bad. The poster used “okies” instead of “.” Some spelling issues and clunky sentences but it’s a post for an online messageboard for the sims no less, let’s have some perspective. It may have been posted by a younger person.
The example in the OP was not a mangling and it wasn’t particularly horrific. It was not schoolroom English and would not be appropriate in a schoolroom but then again neither is fuck and I see no one here getting up in arms about casual usage of that word except for Zotti.
I’m quite firmly in the descriptivist camp. If your use of a collection of phonemes conveys a meaning to me, and that meaning was what you meant to convey, well congratulations, you just used a word, and spoke English, to boot. Language, as others have said, is subjective.
Along those lines, there’s a great local burrito shop whose t-shirt says (and I think I’m getting this right), “I don’t feel half as much like I did when I came in here as I do now.” I’ve tried and failed to parse it many times.
The examples from AAVE and other dialects aren’t manglings of the language at all.
From the Tina Turner biopic from a few years ago – Ike Turner is in a courtroom.
JUDGE: Counsel, instruct your client to remove his sunglasses.
IKE [removing sunglasses]: Man, you ain’t gots to instruct me to do nothin’!
My wife, a non-native English speaker, thought that was one of the most fascinating sentences she’d ever heard.
I was about to explain how very simple this is to parse, but the more I look at it the curiouser and curiouser.
I feel twice as good now as I did then?
“I currently feel less than halfway similar to the way I was earlier.”
I think that’s where I first heard about it.
Question for people from southern PA/northern MD: How many syllables are in “on”?
I have yet to hear this in the wild–I’m only aware of it because of the SDMB. Is there a geographic area where it’s commonly used, like “needs washed” type constructions, or is it widespread? That would take me a little while to wrap my head around.
As to the OP, I don’t think I would have noticed the “is you or is you ain’t” construction as being odd. “Anymore” as “these days,” though, would raise a flag.
I think that some of my midwest relatives used it.
Actually I kind of like the ring of it.
I"ve heard it (“anymore” in place of “these days”), and used it, in the South. It doesn’t seem like a regionalism to me.
I’ve heard the “needs worshed” construction from relatives and friends in northern Kentucky and Indiana. Another one that seems to be spreading is “come with”, as in “I’m going to the store, wanna come with?”
You might want to read page one of this thread. 
I’ve only heard “anymore” in the negative, like “Dave doesn’t live here anymore” but never “Dave lives here anymore.”
Dictionary.com suggests it is regional:
Actually, that first construction (“Baker’s bread is all we eat anymore”) is a construction I’m familiar with and use, but not the latter, nor the construction in Elendil Heir’s example.
Here’s one I never heard until I moved to Atlanta several years ago: might could. As in “I might could stop at the store on the way home.” Also: “You might should finish the pie before it gets old,” and “He might would do it if you asked him.”
Might could? Might should? Might would? WTF? The first time I heard it my brain sort of twisted up and it took me a few seconds to realize the meaning behind the words. Now I know what is meant, but it still sounds very, very strange to me. And very wrong.
It’s true! This is the one bit of accent I’ve held onto since moving to California (despite getting teased for saying Worshington…)
Might could/should/would = maybe.
It’s how Shane spoke to Jack Palance. 
Hey, I’ve been to Boston. You guys talk funny, too!
I’m not from here. I only moved here 2 years ago, so I have no Boston regionalisms in my speech.