
Pittsburghese Expertise: Dropping “To Be” - superchink
http://theglassblock.com/2016/07/07/pittsburghese-expertise-dropping-to-be/
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untothebreach
My wife talks this way all the time, and when we were first dating it really
bothered me. Eventually I came across an explanation of the regional-ness of
it on the internet somewhere, and I asked her if any of her family is from the
Pittsburgh area. As far as she knows, they aren't, but they are from Columbus,
OH, which is just down the highway a bit.

I heard that Pittsburgh-ians also tend to use "yinz" for the second-person
plural, which I find much better than a plain "you," and much, much better
than "You all" or "y'all". (Though I'm now told it is not as commonly used as
I assumed it was)

Anyway, I love reading about the various ways american english has diverged,
given time and distance.

~~~
eximius
It's "y'all", a contraction of "you all", not "ya'll". Which makes infinitely
more sense than "yinz" which is apparently derived from "you ones" or
something like that?

I also find that 'dropping of to be' sounds completely unnatural to me. It
sounds like something I'd expect a non-native speaker to say.

My personal favorite English change is the cot-caught merger.

Of course, all of my preferences make sense because I grew up internationally
or in the south - I wasn't caught up in the cot-caught merger and I picked up
y'all because there has to be SOME second person plural!

~~~
yellowapple
> I picked up y'all because there has to be SOME second person plural!

Same here. Way more elegant solution than "you guys", and less jarring to most
people than, say, "youse". The only better solution would be to bring back
"thou" for the singular and make "you" plural, but alas, that's unlikely to
happen (and I'd be the one using "thou" and "y'all" anyway).

Of course, there are the folks who treat "y'all" as a _singular_ second person
pronoun and use "all y'all" for the plural; I've worked with quite a few of
those folks.

~~~
baldeagle
I use y'all for the second person plural and all y'all to when referring to
multiple groups. For example: Team A will go to the left, team B will go to
the right and then all y'all will charge the center on my mark.

~~~
yellowapple
I dig it; it's like "persons" v. "people" v. "peoples".

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exception_e
I said "<jira ticket> needs deployed" when answering a question the other day
at work and the person had to explain why that sentence is not valid.

I grew up about an hour away from Pittsburgh and work/live in Pittsburgh
now... what's funny is that Pittsburghese is more prominent just outside of
the city.

~~~
rplst8
It's perfectly valid. It's just a non-standard construction. ...for American
English I'll add.

~~~
rhizome
It's regional: [http://microsyntax.sites.yale.edu/needs-
washed](http://microsyntax.sites.yale.edu/needs-washed)

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laksjd
The article mentions that 'In some parts of England, you’d hear people use a
phrase on the model of verbing: “The wine needs opening.”'

Is 'needs verbing' really that uncommon? 'Needs fixing' seems like a very
common expression that fits that pattern. I guess the article might be trying
to say that in some areas of England 'needs verbing' is the default form but
I'm still a bit confused by that sentence.

~~~
SPBesui
It really depends on the tense. I'm from Texas and "needs fixing" sounds
completely normal (although it sounds even more natural as "needs fixin'"),
while "needs fixed" is awkward as heck.

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yellowapple
The idea of _needs verbed_ being nonstandard is entirely new to me, and I live
on the opposite side of the country from Pittsburgh, as has most (all, AFAIK)
of my family. It feels right for things in my day-to-day work, like "the
server needs rebooted" or "the bug needs fixed", though for other things, like
"the code needs compiling", the _needs verbing_ form feels more natural.

~~~
tempestn
Interesting! Can you see any pattern distinguishing the verbs where the -ing
complement form sounds more natural vs the -ed?

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mason55
> _In fact, it’s possible that you are just now learning, from this article,
> that needs verbed isn’t the way everybody says it._

I am from Columbus but moved to NYC awhile back. I am just realizing that at
some point I switched from "needs washed" to "needs to be washed" and never
even realized it.

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brandonmenc
I'm from Western Pennsylvania - an hour North of Pittsburgh - and can confirm.

Interestingly, I've unconsciously learned that "to be" sounds proper, and have
been code switching most of my life without even realizing it.

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tankenmate
It's just a case of re-using the past tense for the gerund instead of using
the present participle tense.

Also, shouldn't the correct collective noun be Pittsburgher not Pittsburghese?
The name Pitt and the noun Burgh are both Germanic not Romance.

~~~
lowmagnet
The dialect is Pittsburghese, not the people. Pittsburgher or Yinzer is the
singular demonym.

And the burgh in Pittsburgh is Scots, not Germanic. For twenty years, they
even dropped the h from the end.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_Pittsburgh](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_Pittsburgh)

~~~
tankenmate
Scots is a North Germanic language with a smattering of West Germanic
vocabulary; as opposed to English which is a North Germanic language with a
large amount of West Germanic and French vocabulary). A fair number of
scholars regard both English and Scots to belong to the West Germanic branch,
but in my estimation the grammar of English and Scots is closer to languages
like Nynorsk or older forms of Danish (which is where the Angles and Saxons
came from). Vocabulary tends to be more flexible and adaptable, via loan words
and the like, than grammar.

You're right; the -er suffix is a reference to a person or thing in Germanic
languages, my mistake. It should be Pittsburghisch or probably more likely
Pittsburghish.

Of course this is nothing more than my humble opinion; opinions like farts
etc...

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alanh
I discovered this thanks to a chance encounter on Duolingo (which is based in
Pittsburgh, coincidentally). This commenter is from my small hometown in
western Pennsylvania, and I in fact knew her in real life:
[https://www.duolingo.com/comment/236814$from_email=comment&c...](https://www.duolingo.com/comment/236814$from_email=comment&comment_id=11325709)

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rplst8
So according to the article, Pittsburghers and Western Pennsylvanians
contstuct it the way those in England do. Huh, we speak Queen's English n'at.

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Piskvorrr
To me (Central European/Czech), this sounds like Russians speaking English:
IIRC, in Russian, the verb "to be" is mostly implied (resulting in sentences
seemingly _without_ a verb), which they carry over when speaking other
languages ("Hello, I here. My car needs fixed.").

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brandonmenc
If anyone is interested in a humorous - yet frighteningly accurate - depiction
of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia speech, watch the "Pawnsylvania" sketches from
Kroll Show:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qeY0mIn1K0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qeY0mIn1K0)

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iopq
It's not dropping "to be", it's using a different participle. It's kind of
like substituting "vaccinated" for "vaccinating".

"To be or not to be" would still sound exactly the same

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Retra
I've been doing this lately. But only because I can't stand my phone's
keyboard. Actually, if I'm not writing professionally or for public
consumption, I do far more egregiously 'fun' things with my writing to make it
more touch-screen friendly:

Convenience:

probably -> prolly

__ing -> __n

__ed -> __d

I'm -> I

and -> n

something -> summat

Purposeful misspellings:

your -> yoor

maybe -> mebes

work -> werk

word -> werd

programming -> porkgramn

morning -> mern

And randomly drop unneeded words.

"The car needs washd, prolly do next fri mebes if I not busy porkgramn summat
fo werk."

~~~
grahamburger
"Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to
understanding." [0]

[http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/28](http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/01/28)

~~~
Retra
It's hard to really jump on that line of thought without more information.
Plenty of misunderstanding occurs because people make unwarranted assumptions
about what some words have been employed to mean on the basis of familiarity
alone. I know a few people who seem to communicate entirely in terms of
cultural signals, propaganda, platitudes, and slogans. This is the easiest
stuff to understand, but it also doesn't offer anything novel.

If I'm going to say something mundane, I see no harm in asking someone to play
a game to understand it. Even if you've failed to understand, there's no real
consequence for it.

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kazinator
Pittsburghers' heads need examined.

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steven2012
As a side note, the OP's username "superchink" seems pretty offensive to
Asians on Hacker News.

~~~
ivanca
...which is also his email, which is also the username of the only person who
wrote a definition for that word at urbandictionary
([http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=superchink](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=superchink))
...yeah.

~~~
superchink
Yeah. Actually, I didn't write that definition, as amusing as it may be. I
don't consider my username to be suited for Urban Dictionary, since it doesn't
qualify as slang.

~~~
ivanca
Forgive us for not thinking your name was all about the vinasco super chink.
[http://www.applog.com/webstore-products/vimasco-
super](http://www.applog.com/webstore-products/vimasco-super)

~~~
superchink
I wonder if people consider that product offensive as well…

