that needs painted

[Wilson Gray]

This is also a feature of *Northeast*-Pennsylvania English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Pennsylvania_English

'With respect to the phenomenon of "positive anymore", Northeast
Pennsylvania English patterns 'with the Midland rather than the North:
sentences like "Cars are sure expensive anymore" and "It's 'hard to
find a job anymore" are grammatical here, but not in the North.[13] A
similar result is found 'with sentences like "The car needs washed" or
"The floor needs swept": these are grammatical in 'Northeast
Pennsylvania as in the Midland, but not in the North.[14]'

After reading the article cited above, Wilson decides to mess with his
wife, Barbara, a native of Wilkes-Barre, located in the Poconos in
"NEPA" and the "capital" of the Great Wyoming Valley of the
Susquehanna River.

W. Cars are sure expensive, anymore.
B.  I know! Remember? We had to add $2K to the budget in order to buy *our* car!
W. BTW, the car needs washed.
B.  Yeah, that's true. Eddie [her brother] says that we should have
had it washed four times, by      now.
W. It's a good thing that we're retired! It's hard to find a job, anymore.
B.  Yes. It's nice for us not to have to worry about that. Only
actually *having* a job is worse!
W. Speaking of washing the car, the floor needs swept.
B. No, it doesn't. A Swiffering will take care of the dust.

Since she's lived about forty years away from "The Valley," these
localisms no longer occur in my wife's speech. However, she remains
passively completely unaware of them. I.e., she's aware of them to the
extent of being able to avoid them automatically in her own speech,
but she doesn't notice them at all in other people's speech.

(No, I have not revealed to my wife that my end of the conversation
was hardly spontaneous.)

FWIW, a friend from Erie, PA, first brought "The car needs washed" to
my attention, ca.1973, though he regarded it as being peculiar to Erie
and not to NEPA in general. I'm surprised that it's still regarded as
being peculiar primarily to *Western* PA, more than a quarter-century
later.

--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain


On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Michael Sheehan <wordmall at aol.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Michael Sheehan <wordmall at AOL.COM>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â that needs painted
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Â  Â The standard cadence would be "that needs painting" or "that needs
> to be painted,"
> but I've come across "a house that needs painted." Is this a feature of
> a particular
> region? Can someone shed light on the practice?
>
> Michael J. Sheehan
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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