Needs + past part. in New England?

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 11:18 AM 3/18/2004 -0500, you wrote:
> >Has anybody else seen this expression used north of NJ?  This
> >morning I opened a mailing from a Toyota dealership in Greenfield,
> >MA that contained the phrase "needs serviced."  I assume these
> >flyers are published locally, because the Toyota dealership in
> >Northampton sends mailings offering its own service deals (usually
> >for a higher price).
> >
> >FWIW, Greenfield is definitely more "countrified" than Noho.
> >
> >Joanne
> >Joanne M. Despres, Senior Editor
> >Merriam-Webster, Inc.
>  ~~~~~~~
>My recollection of a discussion of this construction on ADS-L a year or so
>ago, places it around the Pittsburgh area.
>A. Murie

Oh, it's much broader than that--all through the South Midland and
increasingly in the North Midland and West Midland (west of the
Mississippi) as well.  The question is whether it's also spread to New
England, in native use or (at least for now) in the speech of transplanted
Midlanders.  You might check out where this car dealer has come from, if
he's a "newcomer" to the area.

A particularly silly comment was made to me recently, by a prescriptivist
ESL teacher, herself from Pittsburgh.  She flew into a rage upon hearing a
colleague (also from Pitt) use needs + p.p. and then claimed that it was
brought into the region by coal miners from Slavic countries, who
"transliterated" (her word) a similar construction into English.  It is
authentically English, of course, and common in much of the British Isles.