Pedantic grammar question

[RaininSummer]

Not trying to be a pedantic old fart, but recently I am regularly reading what to me is a jarring use of words/tense and I don't know where it has sprung from.

Examples are phrases such as, 'the baby needs fed' or 'the door wants painted'. I don't understand when or why people have stopped saying, 'the baby needs feeding' or the 'baby needed to be fed'.

Small issue I guess but I feel that I need to know because as part of my job I help young people write job applications etc and want to keep up with the lingo. I don't think it's a common construction around me at present but see it frequently here.

Can anybody explain please?

Thank you everybody. Interesting stuff. It isn't something I have heard in my area of the country but generally we do, indeed, talk to the young people about appropriate language for different situations.

@CityCommuter

Can anyone give me sample sentences please of when you write parents, parent's or parents' ... same with childrens, children's or childrens'... thank you!

Plurals don't have apostrophes unless they are possessive nouns. For example: all my friend's children is all the children of one friend. All my friends' children is all the children of all of my friends.

Apples, pears, oranges etc is multiple pieces of fruit. The apple's skin or the pear's skin is the skin of the apple or pear. The apostrophe indicates that it belongs to the noun.

If you write apple's then someone might ask "the apple's what? The skin? The pips? The core?"

I hope this makes sense.

@echt and @RampantIvy thank you both! You've explained it very well... you'd both make good teachers unless you already are!

Nope. Not me

@thatbigbear

I’m also a grammar pedant, but for me this is a regional variation - my relatives and friends in the north of England have used that construction as long as I can remember.

I'm from the North West of England and have never heard these sentences, it was always 'the baby needs feeding' or 'the baby needs to be fed'. I recall as a child getting told off because when someone said The baby needs feeding, I said Great, lets feed it to the lions in the zoo!