Thanks all. Hareball - yes, English is an evolving language ... but that doesn't mean I have to go along with it! Rob333 - I don't hear any other trace of a foreign accent when I notice this phrase, so I don't think it's due to using English as a 2nd language. Conversate ... okay, I can dig it, lol.

Mamagoose -- that's it! they're dropping the passive infinitive, but only with the verb "to need." Good theory about abbreviated speech. "This needs 2b fixed" looks as odd as "This needs fixed" sounds.

Sushipup, that sentence construction doesn't bother me at all ... in very very small doses.

Joyful -- Myself, I don't like that either!

(thanks everyone else too -- I'm a slow typist and missed the last few posts before this reply)

I used to study Latin though I'm very rusty now. It is similar to the passive periphrastic, but with the omission of the verb to be, common in slang or poetry.

http://blogs.transparent.com/latin/gerunds-vs-gerundives/

But "This needs done" sounds familiar, like something I heard growing up around PA Dutch people.

(The only way I could really learn the names of parts of speech was by learning to read other languages, long after high school.)

I think that Ed has a good point...too bad Dawn is so far away.

How much of this grammar problem is from hearing things from local folks (elders, neighbors, peers, etc.) and how much is from the school system failures.

My cat sitter wrote a note from this past weekend sitting with Tony: "What an pleasure!" My best guess is that she is 55+. Ouch!

" "What an pleasure!" My best guess is that she is 55+. Ouch!"

'Scuse me?? That statement reeks of ageism and I find it more than a little offensive!! As a 55+ female myself, I can assure you that my education when I was school aged was excellent. I'd also like to think that it is the older generation that possesses better grammatical, vocabulary and writing skills than the more current generation. That is certainly borne out by my daughter, now 27, who received an appalling public school education compared to mine!

As a matter of curiosity, why would you come to the conclusion that unfortunate usage has anything at all to do with age?

Why, Ed and Jim. You little devils, both of you!

gardengal, I can't speak for Jim, but I took what he said as being surprised to hear/read a mature person like the pet sitter making the grammatical error when he might be more likely to hear it from someone younger. But, for all we know she was in a hurry when she wrote the note and it was the equivalent of a typo.

edited to add: Not that younger people all have poor grammar, but they have grown up with the shorthand used in today's technology such as texting and tend to be more comfortable using shortcuts when writing compared to older folks.

The cause is laziness and teachers who themselves, use poor grammar. Texting has added to this desire to simplify and then it weasels its way into spoken English.

It would appear that intransitive verbs are out of fashion today as are definitive articles. I hear "She graduated college" today far more than the correct "she graduated FROM college", and one is going to prom instead of to THE prom.

Even newscasters now will say, "President Trump, he went to FL". Drove my late husband crazy...

gardengal - Dawn did a good job on 'splaining' my thoughts. As a man in his 70s, anyone who is in their mid-50s is much younger than I, so it had nothing to do with your perception of ageism. My point was that not all young people (read that to be under 29) have problems with using proper grammar. It is not a recent problem with learning at school or from your peers; it seemed to me (as with the cat sitter), that problems have been going on for a long time.

My father pushed hard to make sure that we did things correctly. Having a hands-on Latin teacher helped, too.

I find it sad that those who have a good education make errors as have been listed above.

Somehow repeated usage makes it correct, for example, "issue," which has taken on the meaning "personal problem." That used to drive my late husband nuts. Well I probably erred in punctuation or something, but maybe as long as we understand what is meant we shouldn't be judgmental. What I hate is trying to figure out what happened while reading the newspaper, when punctuation or word arrangement is ambiguous. Strunk and White is an amazing resource that any journalist should read but it is obviously a thing of the past.

I agree, Jim. I'm appalled when I hear Ivy League graduates make such mistakes. $70,000 a year and they can't speak or write proper English? They should either have their degree revoked (if they were taught and corrected) or get a refund if they were not! I'm in my 70's, too...

I think it's called bad grammar. Some people have less education than others, some have more education or a better education than others. Even for those of similar attainment, not all high schools (where kids REALLY should master reading/writing grammar) nor colleges produce comparable end results. Nor do all start with the same quality of incoming students. Some don't work in jobs where proper grammar and language usage are required. These things do matter.

"I feel as though" the suspect "had gone" to the store to rob it. THAN he went to the next store to spend the money he robbed.

My least favorite is "She gave this to my husband and I." Really? She gave it to I?

Not a grammar error, but another pet peeve of mine is "needless to say. . . ". If it's needless to say, then don't say it!

This is common in Western PA-Pittsburgh area. Used to drive me nuts.

The laundry needs done.

The car needs washed.

The house needs redded up.

I used to think, "to be! to be!"!

Then there's one of my favorite Southerisms: " I feel like that . . .".

I first heard the dropping of "to be" over 20 years ago when I lived in Baltimore. It seemed to be a local way of speaking but it grated on me. I make it a habit when texting to always use all my words. No shortcuts. It can be very confusing trying to decipher what someone means when they don't spell words out and don't use punctuation. There is a funny book called Eats, Shoots and Leaves about that very subject.

I still find the PA lingo endearing. Call it nostalgia.

But I hate when people use "whom" where it is wrong! I'd rather see/hear "who" than that. It seems like an effort to be pretentious and is just plain pathetic.

BTW My house needs cleaning. Or it should have been cleaned a while ago. It needs cleaned!

"To be, or not to be. That is the question." saith an English Bard who had command of the language.

nickel_kg, it's called Infinitival Copula Deletion. It drives me crazy, too. Here is an article that explains it. As mimipadv said, it is common in the Pittsburgh area.

Infinitival Copula Deletion

Here in the US it is referred to as Appalachian English. I have read that it may have come from the early Scots who settled in the area. So it's a really just another regional dialect. These dialects tend to get appropriated as our world shrinks due to travel and modern communication systems.

My latest most hated phrase is, instead of an apology (I'm sorry!), we now have "My bad!". What does that even mean?

'My bad!' The most irritating!

The OP's example is regional vernacular, whereas "my bad" and "bedonkedonk" are example of neologisms which are fine and dandy for the crazy youngsters who bandy them about.

I imagine people were complaining about "far out" and "groovy" a few decades ago!

I'm hearing "ain't" on TV more and more. YIKES!

I have no trouble with "ain't" if it's used colloquially, i.e. "...that ain't happening" and such. One clearly knows what one is saying and would not use it otherwise.

As much as it irritates us, language does evolve and we have no power over that fact. I'm 56 and as I've written before, one teacher fully admitted she knew we didn't care for learning Grammar so she would only spend a week or two doing so. I was disappointed because I enjoyed the subject. We learned very few terms and yes, I learned more about the rules of Grammar when I took French class.

My biggest pet peeve is seen instead of saw. "I seen on that other thread someone writes like this". My director of nurses uses this, and I cringe every time he says it. I have ALMOST told him to stop, but I just don't feel comfortable saying something. Makes him, and anyone, sound uneducated.

My worst grammatical pet peeve, is hearing "I seen." How do people who say "I seen" never notice that the great majority of us say "I saw?"

Children initially learn to speak by mimicking the same vocabulary and grammatical habits of their parents. I know a family whose members all say "I seen," despite being born and bred here for many generations, with English as their mother tongue.

But the current 'children' are both recent university graduates. It baffles me as to how they completed that many years of school, without ever having written the words "I seen" in a paragraph or essay. Or did they write, exactly as they spoke, but it was never once marked as an error by a teacher? Or was it brought to their attention by a teacher, (or by other relatives or friends) but they just never cared to train themselves to correct their poor grammar?

I am by no means intending to offend any people of older generations who had no opportunity for education, or those with perhaps learning disabilities or for whom English is a new language. But most people, even if they can't read or write, will choose any opportunity to speak in a similar manner as they hear the majority of people speak. So it always puzzles me that these acquaintances continue to say "I seen," when they are university educated, and in the company of everyone else saying "I saw." To my horror, one is even a teacher!

I say ain't sometimes, but I say it just as slang. When I'm around people that I need to be more professional around I won't say it. I say y'all too. But I live in Texas so I'm allowed :) I use cos instead of cause or because when I'm texting family, friends or sometimes on here. I know it's not correct, but oh well. :) I do like correct grammar, but know some people know what they are doing but choose to have a little fun with the language and that's ok.

Another pet peeve of mine is when people say more better. Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!! :D

I used to do daycare. I had a boy 12/13 that always said "ain't got none". Drove me nuts. One day his mom and I were talking and out of her mouth came "ain't got none" and I knew why the boy talked this way!!

I can't really be too horrified by incorrect use of English. I'd be thrilled that people in America are simply speaking it, corrupted or not!

Tsk, tsk, susie53. You *knew* a boy *who* always said, "ain't got none".

I don't think he was your child -- nor were you (crudely) intimate with him -- so you didn't *have* him. Also, a boy is a person, so not *that*, but "who".

With 'see, saw, seen' we have someone confusing 'past tense' and 'past perfect tense'. (Past tense is used for something that happened recently. Past perfect refers to something further in the past.)

"Yes, officer, I saw the accident. I have seen accidents like that before."

Who's up for 'swim, swam, swum'?

Do you want to go for a swim?

No thanks, I just swam yesterday.

Did you know that Michael Phelps last swum in the 2016 Olympics?

Swim, swam, swum, is right up there with drink, drank, drunk.

;)

At this stage in my life, I'm just happy to be able to construct a sentence in a somewhat comprehensible way. Google isn't always my friend. I just spent several moments on the words "comprehensible" and "comprehendible" but decided it wasn't worth the effort since it was unlikely I would remember later. For me it's a daily struggle with spelling, punctuation, word usage and all the things I post which shouldn't matter to other people.

A week or two ago, one forum member corrected another member's word usage. It's just plain rude in my book. Cringe-worthy, indeed! (I thought cringeworthy is hypenated but it's not)

I hear more people use the word 'sunk' when it should be 'sank'. Yes, it bugs me.

I'm always trying to learn other languages. Something successful polyglots say is that it's not about getting it right it's about communication. :) Yes we all have those little things that bug us. Some more than others. But the most important part is communication. We still for the most part understand each other, right? :D

Things like that usually doesn't bother me as long as I can understand what it.is they are saying. What I don't like is hearing folks use course language. Another is personal name calling simply because they may disagree with someone. Misspelling, or using any particular dialect or recent popular term isn't important to me. What's in a person's heart is. That's just who I am.

Tsk, tsk. You lookin' at ME? I thought I was being helpful in very mildly noting problems with the sentence from susie53. I tried to further lighten it with the note about 'swim'. It wasn't and isn't my intention to *scold*.

This is the basis for my intent: My mother was raised on a farm. Her mother was a Scots-Irish immigrant, and I doubt that my grandmother could read when she came to NYC as a teenager. My mother taught herself proper English and learned a new vocabulary word every day as a girl. She dressed as well as she could. She spoke well. She wrote well.

These are things people notice, whether they say anything to help you or not. Online, way way we 'speak' has to 'stand in' for so much that remains unknown by the reader of the post.

Chisue, if you're looking at me thinking I was looking at you, no! lol

I took your posting in the spirit of this thread. Now susie, on the other hand, might be spitting the raspberry at you. :)

"Swim, swam, swum, is right up there with drink, drank, drunk"

and think, thank, thunk.

A person tends to speak what they heard growing up. It is very difficult to change. My parents were immigrants who spoke with accents the put stress on the wrong syllable of many American words. They also had trouble with blended sounds like th and sh. In school I did very very well in all the language arts. I was at the top of my class in reading and got excellent grades in English and writing classes. However to this day my verbal speech is flawed. Words come out of my mouth garbled and and incorrectly. My brain is trying to catch up with how to say them correctly while they tumble out of my mouth. LOL I still put the stress on the wrong syllables. I overcame mudder for mother early on but pronunciation of longer words is still a battle. So I never ever judge people by how they speak.

I just had to share this headline. It appeared this morning on our local news website regarding an unclaimed lottery ticket. I suppose they are limited by the number of characters available, but this is really awkward!

Is it you they're looking for? Officials say $100K Powerball ticket sold in....

Rumour has it that ole joyful (seven years university) has been known to use the word "ain't" around here.

Go figger!

o j

I have met people within the business community, who deliberately use "casual speech" to make clients more comfortable. I have heard poor grammar tossed in with some slang and sometimes a curse word. The client is clearly being talked down to but often thinks that the business person is "down-to-earth" or "just a regular guy". It's purely condescending.

If it is done to me I have to fight the urge to tell them to use their big-boy vocabulary...I have more degrees on the wall than he does. But I am too much of a lady to do that.

I've grown tired of hearing it's how we say it in the sath (or insert your chosen location). I remember how badly my Texas cousin wanted to move to Minnesota. I knew she'd have a lot of trouble though. In Houston, she was a high school honor roll student. In Minnesota, she wouldn't have passed third grade English, grammar or math. We took the Iowa basic skills tests but either they couldn't have or they never scored them. There's no way she could have passed them. Even reading letters/emails from her to this day, there's been no improvement. If you don't learn it in grade school, you're penalized for the rest of your life unless you really make a huge effort.

Broadcasting and media have to take their share of the blame for this condition. Not so long ago grammar was important in broadcasting where today it means nothing although I attribute part to the management being so poorly educated they don't know any better. I can only quote Barry Zevan: "Broadcasters these days are absolutely massacring the English language."

"Massacring" Ouch.

Yeah, Moonie, I think you're talking about me correcting someone who always uses "seen" instead of saw. I didn't name names, and she didn't catch on. I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I have to admit that I'm terribly guilty of overusing the word 'like' when speaking to others. I know it's wrong and I cringe when I hear it slip out of my mouth, but I can't help it - once it's escaped my lips, there's no getting it back!

Sleeperblues, it wasn't you to whom i was referring. :)