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Reporters Without Borders sues X (www.voanews.com)

submitted 6 days ago by Joker@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] JWBananas@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

the car needs washed

Is there a name/term for this abomination? I've only ever heard one person speak in that form (omitting "to be"), and it has haunted me ever since.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days 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 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

And for a linguist the question is really whether there are native speakers who consider it correct. Here there are millions who say yes.