QUESTION!!
It was brought to my attention years ago by a Pelican Post guest that I, and I assume some of you, have a speech oddity that is "regional"-- which means, I assume, a bit "country." The region this little speech pattern is found in reaches to Carlisle, PA, at least, because the guy who asked me was a professor at Penn State's law school there and said when he arrived he was amazed to hear everyone from store clerks to lawyers and PhD's using it. When he told me what it was, he knew only that I had been an English teacher and teacher of English as a Foreign Language and had no idea that I spoke this same regional oddity!
Are you ready? Now don't tell me what you know to be correct, but notice if you also use this and try to justify it grammatically. ;)
You find library books that are overdue and you say, "The library books need returned." You notice a messy kitchen and say, "The kitchen needs cleaned."
I want to say that it's a participle functioning as an adjective, but apparently that's not right. Is it a contraction of "need TO BE returned," or "needs TO BE cleaned"?
Aggghhhh!! Do NOT tell me I'm the only one from the Hills of Ohio who has used this grammatically incorrect phrase all my life! ;) I KNOW that the books "need returning" (the simple gerund), but how dumb does that sound to me? And the kitchen needs cleaning? Well, maybe, "The kitchen needs a good cleanin," but just "cleaning"?? I KNOW it's grammatically correct so do I now need to watch my speech carefully or may I continue with my good ol' regional use of "needs cleaned," or "needs returned," or "needs thrashed"? ;)
So?
9 comments:
You definitely keep any fragment of regional speech alive and kickin' if for no other reason than to save all of us from the homogenization of culture.
Having said that, I, your sister, don't think I say, "The kitchen needs cleaned." Do I? If not, I'll work on reclaiming my regional speech.
I know that I'm a lost cause on reformation, anyway, from 10+ years of saying things like, "Room 4 needs cleaned" and "The grass needs mowed badly." Something has always needed something and that's how I say it! If I teach EFL, I'd better be careful or I'll pass on my regionalism. Might as well throw in the useful "you plural" forms which standard English grammar neither recognizes nor condones but which certainly exist: "y'all," "all a'yall," and of course, "you'ns." :)
needs cleaned or needs cleaning both sound appropriate to me, but then, I was raised by a heathen hill woman so who knows?
"Hillwoman," yeah. Heathen, no, or send back your Christmas present! ;)
I have always known that "needs cleaned" is grammatically incorrect to most; but to a child of Appalachia it is good enough for me!
So it's not just me. :) But what is weird is that as much as I studied and thought about grammar, I absolutely never gave it a thought. It still sounds better to my ear than "needs cleaning." Bleck. ;)
I assume Laurie and Mitch don't say it because they're not Appalachian. What about Don and Regi? Did Don pick it up from his parents?
I don't think "needs cleaning" is any more gramatically correct. Isn't the correct form "needs to be cleaned"? If so, then just dropping the "to be" part is a sort of contraction.
"Needs cleaning" is correct as "cleaning" is a gerund so becomes...the direct object of "needs"?? I have watched for this form in everything I've read for years and the gerund is used regularly -- and always sounds weird to me.
I'm with you. I like the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau people's version better. Needs cleaned it is! It's official.
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