needs washed

[Joan Hall]

And DARE treats this at need (verb) sense 2.  The regional label is
"Chiefly Midland, especially Pennsylvania."

At 08:31 AM 1/24/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>>   Also, does anyone know if the following is a usage specific to the
>> Midwest,
>>   because this is the only place I've heard it used (or noticed,
>> anyway): the
>>   dropping of "to be" after needs -- "my hair needs washed," "the clock
>> needs
>>   restored," etc.
>
>_American Speech_ Spring 2002 (Vol 77 Number 1) pages 32ff has an article by
>Thomas Murray and Beth Lee Simon on similar expressions, including maps of
>where they appear or don't appear.  6 pages of bibliography, too.
>
>       - James A. Landau
>
>And Erica Benson (Michigan State Univ.) presented a paper at this
>year's ADS meeting on the origins, spread, and status of the
>apparently related need and want plus particle and prepositional
>phrase constructions (e.g., Bill wants in; The dog wants in the
>house, George needs out, The cat needs in the house). Her work shows
>a decided Midwestern preference for these constructions as well (with
>some surprising acceptance of them, however, in non-Midwest areas
>where people would rather have hangnails than use the needs/wants +
>participle construction).
>
>dInIs
>
>--
>Dennis R. Preston
>Professor of Linguistics
>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
>      Asian & African Languages
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
>e-mail: preston at msu.edu
>phone: (517) 353-9290