Talked about "needs washed" with some people.

[conuly]

You know what I can't get over? I can't get over the fact that the people who say "The car needs washed" or "The country needs healed" are almost universally unaware that they're using a very distinct regionalism.

When New Yorkers stand on line, we know the rest of you stand in lines, and when people from Texas say "y'all" they know that's a Southernism, and when you show people the soda/pop map they smile and nod sagely - but when you tell people that nobody else in the US says "needs fixed" they go "Are you sure? How else would you say it? You can't be serious!"

And you know, when people are aware that they're using a dialectical term or construction, they can either embrace it or they can avoid it, depending on the person and the context and the prestige of their dialect - but man, people with "needs done" just get stuck on "Are you positive nobody else says this?" (Yeah, man, I'm positive.)

I have these conversations over the internet, so obviously they have that, and I presume these people all have access to television and books and so on, and they read and many of them are college educated - and yet, somehow, they're always surprised at this revelation.

Honestly, it's charming. I have no idea how nobody with this feature is aware of it until explicitly told, but I think it's great. (And in the process of saying this, inevitably two or three or more commenters end up popping up to go "Wait, wait, are you really sure?" Every time this subject comes up on any corner of the internet - and since it IS so unusual to those of us without that construction, using it pretty much guarantees somebody is going to comment on it - they just fall all over themselves to check if the rest of us are just pulling their collective legs. Which we aren't.)

Comments

[ironed_orchid]

Wow. I haven't come across that one before.

It's interesting what you say about people who use it being unaware that it's a dialect thing. I mean, you'd think they'd notice that it doesn't typically show up in books or major newspapers.

[conuly]

I know! But they never seem to. Well, it's easier to notice a novel construction than to notice that a common one never shows up.

[steorra]

I didn't know "I'm done my homework" wasn't universal until I'd lived in the US for a year or two. Apparently it's normal in Canada and in a few American dialects but not most of the US.

"Well, it's easier to notice a novel construction than to notice that a common one never shows up."
I think this is an important point.

[hunningham]

wow. That's a construction I use and I have NO IDEA whether or not it's standard British speech or not. And no one around right now that I can try this one out on. I'm from N.Ireland (where speech tends towards the Scottish rather than Irish flavours of English) so am used to having people comment on the accent, on dialect, on unusual word choices or constructs, but I don't think anyone's ever picked on "the cat needs stroked" as an oddity.

[conuly]

Well, its prevalence in that part of the US is often chalked up to a high level of Scots-Irish settling the area, if that helps.

[waterfall8484]

It's pretty common in Ireland I think - it's probably an Irish sentence structure or something? That tends to happen over there. :~)

[kyrielle]

I was going to protest that I say this, but actually I only rarely do; and in any case it makes some sense, my mother's family is from Ohio.

[lucie-p.livejournal.com]

This definitely needed addressed! ;)

[conuly]

:P

... and when you have a quarter, the world is your oyster.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We never heard anyone say that until we were listening to Dick Orkin's The Tooth Fairy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xUUgjSdQhc), a five-minute daily radio show, and he said "It's not my shoes that need fixed, it's my mouth." Orkin is from Pennsylvania, so that may help with the map that needs created.
Jay
(I'm still a Tooth Ranger)

Re: ... and when you have a quarter, the world is your oyster.

[conuly]

Last I heard it centers around Pittsburgh, so that makes sense.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The closer to Appalachia,, the more there's a trilled r stuck in there too: "needs warshed" - drove me nuts till I got used to hearing it.

I didn't move to Pennsylvania till I was 16, so it wasn't my native dialect, and I knew that people elsewhere didn't say it. I was brought up with such excruciatingly-correct English as to instantly alienate the non-U, and had to adopt slang as protective camouflage, so I learned to say "needs washed", and I still say it, even though I moved away from that region almost 40 years ago.

The thing to realize is even though it's regional in origin, many people who grew up saying it have also moved around the country and had families in other regions, so it's not unknown elsewhere. There are a lot of former north-eastern Midwesterners here in the Pacific Northwest; enough that if you said "this needs washed' in Seattle, probably few people would find it odd.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I first encountered the construction "needs verbed" when I moved to Carlisle (North-West England, right on the Scottish border). It was fairly common there, and was in daily use at work as "needs told" when a reporter (or cameraman) needed to be informed of their assignment for the next day.

[conuly]

That makes sense, in the US it's common in areas with a high number of people with Scottish ancestry.