this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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Dialect variation. For me, saying “the car needs washed” sounds truly strange but millions and millions of people say it. You’re experiencing similar with this phrase.
Is there a name/term for this abomination? I've only ever heard one person speak in that form (omitting "to be"), and it has haunted me ever since.
I think you’d call this elision. Assume that the phrase is originally “the car needs to be washed” but you cut out “to be”, making it into a shorter form. It’s pretty common in language to shorten things to make it faster to speak. Think of the endless contractions in English or perhaps leaving part of a sentence completely unspoken because the content is easily assumed by the interlocutors.
Worse, to me, is that there is a perfectly grammatically correct way to be just as brief.
Wrong:
Right:
'chest of draws' was a weird one for me!
I believe you, I had just never heard it was "wrong" and it's never stood out to me.
Funny enough I learned about it in a linguistics class from a professor out of Michigan. Never heard the concept before and I think a lot of people had their minds blown.