"It needs to be cleaned" or "it needs cleaned"?

Question

A friend has mentioned that I "talk funny". When asked what he meant, he gave me the following examples:

I say, "It needs cleaned." He says, "It needs TO BE cleaned."

He continued to give me examples, but they all dealt with using the "needs to be" before a verb.

I think they are both correct, but they identify different tenses.

Are we both correct??

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

"It needs cleaned." is characterisitic of a regional dialect of American English.
Standard English places the "to be" after need.

Tanit · Answer

Hi,

Can I take advantage of this thread?

I think in BrE "It needs cleaning" would be a correct alternative to "It needs to be cleaned".
Is it used also in AmE? If it is, is it considered substandard?

Thank you.

Avangi · Answer

Tanit Can I take advantage of this thread? No.

I think in BrE "It needs cleaning" would be a correct alternative to "It needs to be cleaned".

Is it used also in AmE? If it is, is it considered substandard? In AmE, it's absolutely idiomatic, common, and neutral with respect to register.

Yankee · Answer

Avangi
Tanit Can I take advantage of this thread? No.

You're getting pretty fresh in your old age, Avangi.

Avangi · Answer

Well, it's not my thread. (But you may take advantage of me.)

Tanit · Answer

Avangi
Tanit Can I take advantage of this thread? No.

Hehe, you know I absolutely adore you, don't you? [K]

At first, I thought that the OP might be mixing up "It needs cleaning" and "It needs to be cleaned", thus producing the sentence he asked about. Afterwards, I realised that I only knew about this usage in the UK, where they also use "need" as a semimodal (You only need see her! -- You needn't come. -- You needn't heve brought a present.) and knew nothing at all about the USA. That's why I thought I'd better ask.

Thanks for answering!

Avangi · Answer

The relation between the BrE usage and the colloquial AmE usage is fascinating.
"You only need see her" is uniquely BrE only in the omission of the infinitive marker, in my opinion. However, your "needn't" examples were quite common to hear growing up in New England.
Of course, living in a land of immigrants, Americans assimilate whatever catches their fancy, and anglophiles are common. Not too long ago, it was all the rage to have a British receptionist answering your phone.

Tanit · Answer

Thanks again, Avangi.  <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

Anonymous · Answer

The OP wasn't talking about the sentence "it needs cleaning," (which is fine in american english) he was asking whether the sentence "it needs cleaned" is an acceptable alternative to the sentence "it needs to be cleaned." I'm rarely emphatic about grammar but please allow me to say "NOOOOO! PLEASE NOOOOO!!!" I first started to become aware of this ommission of "to be" in written form on craigslistings and those sorts of informal blurbs. At first I figured it was some strange anamoly caused by autocorrection, but then I started to see it so much that I realized people were doing it on purpose. I thought perhaps it was some modern linguistic affectation that existed only in written form so as to decrease by two words the amount of words needing to be typed. No matter how I tried, I just couldn't imagine someone actually using "it needs cleaned" in a spoken context. One day I was watching a real-estate auction on TV and low and behold... a rather twangy southern gent, probably from Louisiana, Florida, or somewhere thereabouts uttered the loathesome sentence "it needs cleaned, and this probably needs cleaned too." I couldn't believe it; it affected me so adversely that I threw my secret copy of Tamerlane at the TV screen and smashed it to smithereens. Anyway, I'm sure many language experts who speak of the aqueous and ever evolving nature of language would tell me to lighten up, (as well as anyone from the southern part of the US), but man... this regional dialect, if that's what you want to call it, is like thorns in my eardrums. Weirdly, it almost always occurs in the sentence 'it needs cleaned," but I have seen it in others like "it needs repaired." So, to answer the original poster's question... you might both be right in about three or four states, but in the rest of the world, and especially if you're on a job interview, go ahead and use those extra two words. Thanks for letting me vent. Oh, and remember, without "to be" William Shakespeare would have said "or not, that is the question?"... which still makes more sense to me than "it needs cleaned."

Avangi · Answer

What do you think of this one, Anon?

I have almost the same question that I'd appreciate answered.

(I borrowed it from a poster.)

- A.

"It needs to be cleaned" or "it needs cleaned"?

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