Marvin A.  +  309305 Mon, 01 Jan 07 02:59 AM  Milky wrote: <"My car needs washed." would be considered correct, whereas for example, in my dialect it is not. > Would education authorities across the USA consider it correct and therefore teachable/worth teaching? I would imagine it depends on the region.  Another example is "have got" for "have".  I've seen several books from the other side of the puddle which use "have got" as in: "I have got a book."  I assume it's considered correct there, whereas here, although it's certainly used in speech occasionally by many speakers, it is not considered "correct" grammar, and would look fairly out of place in a book.  Here it would be simply "I have a book."  I've also heard that they don't use "have gotten", as in "I've gotten several books from my uncle." as it's considered slightly archaic or something. Marvin A. Joined on Fri, Dec 8 2006 Regular Member 638 Grammar, Dialects

	Englishuser  +  309352 Mon, 01 Jan 07 10:42 AM I've also heard that they don't use "have gotten", as in "I've gotten several books from my uncle." as it's considered slightly archaic or something. Yes, that's correct. The past participle 'gotten' is indeed obsolete in most British dialects. Englishuser Englishuser Joined on Thu, Mar 30 2006 Regular Member 717 Dialects

	milky  +  309370 Mon, 01 Jan 07 12:09 PM <I would imagine it depends on the region.> I have never heard of any American education authority giving a thumbs up to "this car needs washed". milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".

	Marvin A.  +  309447 Mon, 01 Jan 07 05:01 PM  Milky wrote: <I would imagine it depends on the region.> I have never heard of any American education authority giving a thumbs up to "this car needs washed". It is considered quite correct and unremarkable in certain regions.  I suppose if a teacher who moved there from somewhere else, he would consider it incorrect.  And anyway, nowadays, many teachers ignore many presciptivist grammatical rules--it is highly unlikely that a teacher would take issue with a split infinitive, for instance.  And by the way, what's an "Education Authority"? Marvin A.

	Grammar Geek  +  309496 Mon, 01 Jan 07 08:30 PM Thank goodness the teachers in my children's classrooms don't have this view! Where do you draw the line between things like "I seen it" and "Where you at?" with "The car needs washed"? I would consider education authorities to be the people who select the text books and set the curriculum. And I don't want them selecting books that advocate for forms of English that will be in contrast to what is expected of my children when they enter the business world. (Although if everyone who was in the business community was utterly proficient in every aspect of English, I guess I wouldn't have a job.) To boldly split an infinitive is just a matter of style, not grammar, in my opinion. Grammar Geek Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006 Veteran Member 19,683 Barbara, who answers in American English. My housekeeping skills attest to the truth of the second law of thermodynamics: Left to themselves, things get more and more random! Grammar