A Pennsylvanian?

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jul 26 19:43:24 UTC 2011


On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I think that's well known as Midwestern grammar. Things like "The clothes need washed."

Which states do you include under the rubric, "Midwestern"? My home
state of Missouri is sometimes included thereunder. However, I didn't
become aware of this grammatical phenomenon till a friend, a native of
Erie, PA, brought it to my attention, using as his example,

"The car needs washed."

My wife is a native of Wilkes-Barre, PA.

But this is not meant as an assertion that the phenomenon exists
nowhere else. I'm merely defending my perhaps-unwarranted leap to the
conclusion that the writer quoted was probably also a native of
Pennsylvania.

--
-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

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