Bob:
Writing from Peoria (where I have been 'playing' for the last 20 years), I must report that this use of "need" is alive and well, as in the oft heard, "The car needs washed" (though over in Tazewell County, on the east side of the Illinois River, they add a medial 'r,' so you'll hear "The car needs warshed.").
Seth
Dr. Seth Katz
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Bradley University
Faculty Advisor
Bradley University Hillel
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Robert Yates
Sent: Mon 5/21/2012 10:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: progressive passive
I grew up in Peoria and now live 60 miles east from Kansas City.
My sister and sister-in-law in Peoria use the construction.
In my local paper in Missouri, about 15 years ago I saw an ad in the local paper: We have a lot of houses that need sold.
Bob Yates
On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Dick Veit <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Maybe so, John, but there are plenty of other "needs + PAST PARTICIPLE" examples available. Here's one <http://southeastmain.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/the-slammer-needs-painted/> that uses "needs painted" twice and "needs explored" once, and the writing is anything but sloppy. Here's an excerpt from the link:
The Slammer not only needs painted (on canvas, board, and/or paper) it really needs to be painted many times. It needs to have its full location disclosed (the tofu company that sits beside it, for example, needs to be in one painting. The razor wire along the balcony on the left, next to the cherry tree, needs explored, in a painterly fashion.
The writer appears to be in Oregon. Can anyone report in which regions this locution is commonly heard?
Dick
On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 9:43 PM, John Chorazy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From the same "needs painted" source, just a few lines down - can't
help think the title is just a typo as the rest doesn't follow similar
usage... Interesting thread, nonetheless.
<There are several other ways to tell if your home needs to be painted
and renewed; the color is fading and is noticeably lighter, there are
water streak lines, the white colors are turning grey, and/or deep
colors are losing their base and depth. Also, if you find chalking on
the surface of the paint, it may mean you need to get your home power
washed and painted.>
http://blog.sharperimpressionspainting.com/?p=359
John
> Good point about "needs painting," etc. I've argued in my classes that
> "needs painted" is an innovative form and "needs painting" a reflex of the
> older passive progressive.
>
>
>
> I don't know enough about Eliot's grammar and style to say definitively that
> she would or would not have used the verbal noun "making" in an active
> sense. Having just finished Mill on the Floss, that sort of ellipsis feels
> odd, but that's not evidence. Spring allergies feel odd too.
>
>
>
> Herb
>
>
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dick Veit
> Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2012 9:59 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: progressive passive
>
>
>
> Herb,
>
> The old form of the progressive passive ("My house is painting") survives in
> expressions following "need," as in "My house needs painting" and "My bed
> needs making." There are even some regional US dialects where one hears "My
> house needs painted."
>
> Let me respond to your inquiry about "the articles he had seen under her
> fingers in the process of making." Before reading your analysis, I would
> have read "making" as active: the process of her making them, rather than
> the process of them being made. This may reflect my present-day perspective,
> however, and Eliot could well have intended the passive.
>
> Dick
>
>
> On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 11:43 PM, Stahlke, Herbert <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> It's well known that the Present Day English progressive passive as in
>
>
>
> My house is being painted
>
>
>
> did not come into wide use till the mid-19th c. Until then, one would have
> said-or written
>
>
>
> My house is painting.
>
>
>
> The progressive was probably the last form of the passive construction to
> develop in English. Here is an example of the older construction from
> George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860, Penguin Classics 1979), p. 549:
>
>
>
> "It is true, she was looking very charming herself, and Stephen was paying
> her the utmost attention on this public occasion - jealously buying up the
> articles he had seen under her fingers in the process of making, and gaily
> helping her to cajole the male customers into the purchase of the most
> effeminate futilities."
>
>
>
> The phrase "the articles he had seen under her fingers in the process of
> making" is the construction in question, where "making" in PDE would be
> "being made." Parsing the phrase as a late instance of the Early Modern
> English -ing form as a progressive passive makes sense in its historical
> context and Eliot's linguistic conservatism. What sparked my curiosity was
> how my fellow grammarians might parse the construction, not treating it as a
> slightly archaic form for 1860s English. The analysis must account for both
> meaning and grammatical form.
>
>
>
> Herb
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
>
> Emeritus Professor of English
>
> Ball State University
>
> Muncie, IN 47306
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
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--
John Chorazy
English III Honors and Academic
Pequannock Township High School
973.616.6000
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