Needs + past part. in New England?

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 09:02 AM 3/18/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>On Mar 18, 2004, at 6:40 AM, Joanne M. Despres 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.
>
>maybe it's spreading out from its original territory in the u.s. (a
>band going from western pennsylvania west to, roughly, iowa).  even
>here in california!  one of our grad students, laura staum, caught the
>following in a 3/12/04 e-mail memo from our department's administrator:
>
>>>... or [if] you have an old cpu box/monitor sitting around that needs
>>>removed...
>
>we were pretty sure the author was a california native, and so he is,
>according to his response to a query from me this morning:
>
>>I grew up in west Los Angeles; my mother came from Clay Center, Kansas
>>(her family were dust bowl immigrants to California, over the late
>>thirties to early forties, she came out in 1940).
>>
>>My father came from New York State, his family moved all over New York
>>when he was young, so the particular town that he came from escapes
>>me.
>
>i wonder where he picked up the construction.
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

Its spread westward began quite early, I believe, certainly to Kansas, and
since Depression-era settlement in California was in large part from the
economically-depressed Midland, I wouldn't be surprised if many in-migrants
had this construction.  It may have been diluted (or even suppressed) by
the coming of later waves from elsewhere, but it's obviously still there.

I was quite surprised a few years ago to hear my uncle and aunt (brother
and sister) using "positive anymore" in southern California--on separate
occasions, and not in each other's company.  She went to L.A. and San Diego
from Minnesota (negative 'anymore' country) in 1940 to get work, and her
brother went to L.A. in about 1955 (five other siblings had gone there even
earlier, in the '30s).  They had to have picked up the form out there,
apparently from other transplants from the Midwest.