When I first started attending Shippensburg University, located in scenic Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, I noticed an interesting grammatical phenomenon. People tended to leave off the "to be" in their sentences that include the word "need". I will never forget the first time I heard (or rather didn't hear) it, a girl in my Eng 111 class stated her dorm room wall "needed painted". I'm pretty sure my head cocked to the side like a dog who wasn't sure they heard you right the first time. Is this really an acceptable turn of phrase? Would one use this type of phrase in a term paper?
Since then I have been acutely aware that there are people all over who just don't use the "to be" in their sentences. The dog needs walked. The lawn needs mowed. The trash needs taken out. Old people, young people, educated people, not so educated people, doesn't matter. I married someone who uses these types of phrases about half the time and this morning Madeline told me her "backpack needs washed".
Awesome.
Totally guilty of this. Didn't even realize it until I was 22 or 23. I was a nanny for triplets and both parents held PhD's (one a professor of brain research at CMU and one working on stem cell research to regenerate a liver at Pitt). They were determined to raise their children without a Pittsburgh accent, while living in the heart of the city. For that year, I was acutely aware.
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