In it and of it?

I was sitting at the kitchen table with an open bottle of Aurora Black, about to fill three fountain pens. I called up to Elaine:

“Do you have any pens that need filled?”

I was not trying to be cute. I was using the [need + past participle] construction with an utter absence of self-consciousness. It just came out. I may now be not only in east-central Illinois but of it.

Then again, filling German fountain pens with Italian ink isn’t exactly a regionalism.

Related reading
More [need + past participle] posts (Pinboard)

Flight need

A guest on MSNBC earlier this afternoon, commenting on airline woes:

“Does the system need repaired and upgraded?”

[Need + past participle] is a regionalism. It’s become one of my regionalisms.

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More OCA [need + past participle] posts

Masonic [need + past participle]

“His hair needed cut”: so says a witness in the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Wrathful Wraith” (November 7, 1965).

[Need + past participle] is an Illinoism. The witness, Rosemary Welch, was played by Jeanne Bal, a Chicago native. Was [need + past participle] in the script? Did this verb form just slip out?

Paul, have one of your operatives out at the studios look into it.

Related reading
Other needs, other past participles

Needs rephrased

From a TV commercial for a community college: “Choose a major that will prepare you for a promising future or university transfer.”

[Need + past participle is a thing.]

Saturday’s Stumper today

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Stan Newman, the puzzle editor, was divine, simply divine, a “Saturn-day Stumper” with clues about the Roman deity and his fambly.

Some clue-and-answer combo plates I especially liked:

1-A, four letters, “Red ___.” Do they still exist?

31-D, four letters, “Skyscraper supplier.” I like the sound of the clue.

41-A, seven letters, “Inapt outdoor sculptures.” Yes, sometimes they do need removed. (Need + past participle: a regionalism I like.)

57-D, three letters, “Heady real estate investment.” This kinda clue, I swear. (Trails off into muttering.)

59-A, six letters, “Open to the public.” I like the misdirection.

63-A, three letters, “Beer barrel pokers of a century ago.” Groan.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

MacUpdater

A useful download: MacUpdater checks on updates for apps not from the App Store. MacUpdater is free to use for checking (after which you can update apps on your own). Buy MacUpdater and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater just for checking — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.

It’s another [need + past participle] day.

A [need + past participle] day

A bank’s LED sign: “Mortagage need refinanced?”

An invoice: “Tech was called out for water heater. Found needed reset.”

A localite, noticing some Asian honeysuckle that ought to be cut back: “It needs done!”

[Need + past participle] is a regionalism, found in many places, including downstate Illinois.

Related posts
“Need rescued” : “Needs studied” : “Need worked”

Needs studied

“A Downstate Illinois Dictionary” (Chicago). With fronted o, need + past participle, and positive anymore.

Related posts
Illinoism : “Need worked” : Positive anymore

[“Illinois”? “Ellinois?” I think either pronunciation is acceptable. But only Sufjan Stevens can get away with “Illinoise.”]

Got winter?

Out for a walk. And someone said, “Good morning! It got winter, didn’t it?”

It was 28 °F, so yes, it did. But I’d never heard that idiom before. Have you?

A quick search turned up a handful of examples. From northern California oral history: “it got winter and they built this lean-to or cache or whatever you might call it.” From a novel set in Kentucky: “It was like it got winter all at once.” From a Flickr photograph: “It got winter . . . a little.” Does winter here function as an adjective? Or does the idiom omit to be, as in the common-in-these-parts idiom “need + past participle”? As in The car needs washed. Or maybe, soon, The snow needs shoveled.

Minor bill-paying wisdom

Twice in recent months I’ve forgotten to sign my name to the checks that pay our water bill. I have a good excuse though: the feeling of accomplishment I get from writing our account number on the check’s memo line obliterates all thoughts of further writing. You should know that our account number is a twelve-digit string of 0s, 1s, and 2s. Our water department appears to keep its accounts in base three.

But I digress. Here is the minor wisdom:

When you need to write a check, sign first. That way you’ll never get a call from the water department, or any other department, because your check needs signed.

Reader, is there any minor bill-paying wisdom that you would like to share?

A related post
Minor kitchen wisdom (from me and from readers)

[“Need + past participle” is a regionalism I like.]

Need worked

Signage on a store’s stock cart. Like a couple three and pop (for soda), “need + past participle” is a familiar element in downstate-Illinois speech. And it’s the one of those three that I like. (Omit needless words and all that.)

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Illinoism

Illinoism

The American Heritage Dictionary offers this regional note:

When need is used as the main verb, it can be followed by a present participle, as in The car needs washing, or by to be plus a past participle, as in The car needs to be washed. However, in some areas of the United States, especially western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, many speakers omit to be and use just the past participle form, as in The car needs washed. This use of need with past participles is slightly more common in the British Isles, being particularly prevalent in Scotland.

This use is also prevalent in downstate-Illinois speech. The sentence above, from an ad in the local newspaper, has the first "need + past participle" I've seen in print.

A related post
Need worked