While not your typical Grammar Nazi, I find the following to be irritating.
I will get notes from staff saying that something or other “needs finished” or “needs done” (instead of “needs to be finished/needs to be done”).
I just sent back a proposed procedure manual revision featuring glaring examples of this, with corrections.
Mrs. J. thinks it’s a Pittsburghism that has crept west into Ohio.
It needs stop.
Ace309
January 24, 2011, 4:07am
3
You mean “needs stopped.”
Wouldn’t that be “It needs stopped”?
And agreed.
Would you be happier with ‘needs finishing’?
I agree that ‘needs finished’, ‘needs washed’, etc, needs eradicated.
I’ve only ever heard of this usage right here on the Dope. Seems it hasn’t slimed into corporate Australia yet, thank Og.
I’d never heard it until I started dating an Ohioan. It was…really odd at first. And it took me a little while to get the usage correct. But now, I find it kind of endearing, and I occasionally do it myself.
I classify it as “mostly harmless.”
Khadaji
January 24, 2011, 12:03pm
9
It think it may be a Pennsylvania regionalism. It isn’t uncommon where I am and I confess that I have been guilty of using the idiom a time or two. (I remember a young man from Canada making fun of me in the mid 90s for it when I was consulting.)
Pai325
January 24, 2011, 12:46pm
10
It is very common in rural Illinois, and it makes me want to cover my ears and scream.
MegaBee
January 24, 2011, 12:56pm
11
It is a part of Pittsburghese. As long as the meaning is clear, I couldn’t care less.
LSLGuy
January 24, 2011, 1:38pm
12
You never can tell what needs searched.
Bootis
January 24, 2011, 2:24pm
14
You no care none if sentinces like this be coming up in technical procedure manuals 'cuz you know what I mean ?
Eww that’s awful. Especially written.
Clearly we need a stronger barrier between OH and PA, to keep these Pittsburghisms from infecting our language.
(The existing barrier needs strengthened.)
Jackmannii:
…
It needs stop.
No, it “needs stopped” :rolleyes: :p.
It actually made its way east to Harrisburg, too; I grew up using that phrasing as well.
Of course, I grew up thinking the third letter of our nation’s capital was ‘R’, also. I got over both of these “rate away” once I hit high school.