this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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[–] stoly@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] JWBananas@lemmy.world 1 points 14 minutes ago

Worse, to me, is that there is a perfectly grammatically correct way to be just as brief.

Wrong:

The bed sheets need washed.

Right:

The bed sheets need washing.