redset
Joined: 18 Mar 2006
Posts: 582
Location: England
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 Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:10 am Post subject: |
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| CP wrote: |
| I would not think that "She needs her hair washed" means "She needs her hair to have been washed," but rather "She needs her hair to be washed." It needs to be washed right now, not in the future, and there's nothing progressive about it. |
Well what I mean is, it's not washed right now so it needs to be washed as soon as possible, right? Washing needs to take place immediately! Once the washing has been done her hair will be washed. She really needs this to be the case. The result of washing her hair is that it will be washed, so really both sentences are talking about the same thing, they're both saying that the acts of washing is needed, if you see what I mean.
Nawee, I wouldn't use it in formal language but it would be perfectly acceptable in informal speech and writing. And I would teach it to second language learners who will be communicating with British English speakers, simply because it's a construction they might encounter quite regularly. It's more a case of helping them to understand than teaching them to actually use that construction themselves. |
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