So cycling is political act??

[owlice]

Just wanted to come back and say that my mom is laughing at me now.

She just asked, "So if we're looking at one chair with a bad paint job and one with old fabric, what would you say," and I answered with "That one needs painted and that one needs reupholstered"

She replies "I guess we can only buy new chairs from now on."

(I'll stop hijacking now too!)

Oh, just saw this!! lol!! So your mom doesn't use that construction?

[jessmarimba]

She implied that it was acceptable in grammar school, but that she hadn't thought about it in years. Dad is definitely very proper about his grammar, too.

It's most likely from waiting tables in ruralish TN, to try and sound more like the customers. Mimicry for better tips! But I did study Russian for awhile and they don't really have a verb "to be" so you couldn't say something like "that chair needs to be reupholstered" (not that I know the Russian verb for reupholster).

[lph]

(not that I know the Russian verb for reupholster).

jessmarimba, you disappoint me

[emily_in_nc]

Jessmarimba, the "needs upholstered" in a previous post was what made me think this. This is an old construction in English which is retained in certain parts of the US through Scots-influenced language (as in, coming from the Scots language, a Germanic language from the Angles, spoken in lowland Scotland and Northern Ireland).

My in-laws talk like this -- they have lived in Ohio all their lives and are of Swedish and German descent. My DH, being from Ohio as well (though he's lived many other places since college) still says things like that. It sounds odd to me, being a southern gal!

[marni]

my own regionalisms are an inability to say a sentence without an automatic "ya know" (SoCal in the 1950 and later) and an acquired use of "yu'ns for you all which is a north carolina coastal useage but very similar to my second languages (dutch) useage of "jullie" for you as a group (third person plural.)

marni

[jessmarimba]

I should've thrown you guys for a loop and said that the chair needs reupholstered wicked soon.

(Oh, and just thought I'd throw in - I believe mom's family is of eastern European descent, in or near a region that was part of what was Czechoslovakia. She was living in Ohio when she met my dad but was born in Georgia)