Needs specimens

[Mike Salovesh]

Allan Metcalf said:

> In central Illinois, "needs cleaned" and "needs washed" are common . . .

Jane Clark replied:

> I spend time in central Illinois although I no longer live there, and I have > never heard this except by extremely low class people. You really shouldn't say > it is common.

On Monday, I saw a truck parked on a grocery store parking lot with this
message traced in its very dusty side:

"This truck needs washed".

That was here in DeKalb, Illinois. DeKalb is central Illinois on the
east-west axis, even though it's on the northern end of the state.

In Illinois, isoglosses follow political lines as well as north-south
geographic lines.  The significant political division is "Chicago
Metropolitan" versus "Downstate" (i.e., everywhere else).

In most of Illinois, I think the most widely-used forms are those that
follow the model of "needs washing" or "needs cleaning".  The passive
"needs to be washed" is likely to be confined to self-consciously formal
speech -- or writing.  "Needs cleaned" and "needs washed" and similar
forms, on the other hand, strike me as fairly well established, but
secondary, usages in Downstate Illinois to the north of a line from St.
Louis, MO to Champaign-Urbana, IL.  (I'm not saying the forms don't
occur south of there.  That's just the line where my familiarity ends.)

Since this thread began, I've taken to asking some people if they
recognize the
usage, and if they do where they think it comes from.  I have repeatedly
heard "needs washed" atributed to "German speakers" or "Pennsylvania
Dutch" or
"Skandahoovians".  (My wife says she thinks it belongs with the
Pennsylvania Dutch branch of her family, too.)

-- mike salovesh                    <salovesh at niu.edu>
PEACE !!!