Mumsnet Talk

or 'didn't need fed'.

I keep seeing this horrid turn of phrase all over mumsnet. What happened to 'to be'? Do people speak like this now? (I wouldn't know -I'm a hermit).

Ghastly.

<fans self>

They're probably Scottish! It's perfectly normal grammar up here

Is it really? Maybe they are all Scottish then...?

Agree, it is a scottish turn of phrase

Yes, it's quite the usual way of putting things - "This shirt needs ironed" , "The floor needs swept" etc. My BIL (SE England) gets quite ratty about how we're saying things "wrong", but I ask who gave his area the right to decide the only "correct" way of saying things

Well, you live and learn. I'll assume the perpetrators are Scottish and stop being annoyed then! Thanks.

What a lovely response

I haven't actually seen this.

Well, I do hang around on baby sleep threads where much discussion of whether they do or do not need feeding goes on!

What would you say? Didn't want to be fed? That sounds so odd to my Scottish ears. I love language idiosyncrasies.

I hate the term 'need feeding'.

The bucket needs filling. No, it needs to be filled.
Your hair needs cutting. No, it needs cut.
The baby needs feeding. No, it needs fed.

Annoys me.

Yes, would definitely use 'to be' in there. Sounds so odd otherwise to my English ears! But I didn't realise it was a dialect thing. Very interesting.

And that I must assume all posters are English. Mental note duly made.

I think we all start assuming our dialect/grammar are the norm, and are surprised to find it's not the case! I hadn't even realised the Scottish pattern was specifically Scottish until BIL started telling me I was "wrong"!

Very common in the north east too. You're a freak if you get it right in these parts.

Streaky, the construction IS right, it is an acceptable dialect variation. I had been living in England for at least 6 years before a close friend pointed out that my "the shirt needs ironed" sounded wrong to his ears. If we are going to split hairs, the absolutely correct grammar is "the shirt needs to be ironed". So the Scottish phrasing is a lot closer to the correct grammar than the English "the shirt needs ironing", with its rogue present participle.