Regionalisms

[Thomas & Karen Mitchell <kg7u@OLYMPUS.NET>]

Most of these postings have focused on differing nouns for
the same thing, or differing adjectives describing them.  I
haven't seen anything yet on differing verb forms.  Where I
grew up (in Port Townsend, Washington, on the Olympic
Peninsula about 75 miles northwest of Seattle), we always
used the past participle form of the verb to follow "needs".
For example, the dishes need washed, the floor needs swept,
my hair needs combed.  Imagine my surprise when I went to
college in Seattle to find that other people's dishes needed
washing, floors needed sweeping, and hair needed combing!
What were all these gerunds doing in there?!

I really noticed differences when I moved to Washington DC
in 1972.  People there said lollipop, whereas I said sucker;
they said soda, instead of pop; license tags instead of
license plates, etc.  But the one that really threw some
poor clerk in a store shortly after we moved there was when
my husband and I went shopping for a baby buggy for our
about-to-be firstborn.  How were we to know they always said
baby carriage back there!

Karen Mitchell, Librarian
Queen of Angels School  (K-8)
1007 S. Oak St.
Port Angeles   WA  98362-7742

kem@mail.qofaschool.org

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