Pittsburgh Language

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jill. I’m in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Hi, Jill. How are you doing?

Good. I have a question. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and when we were growing up, we always used to say things like, the car needs washed and the kids need picked up. And then after my siblings and I went away to college, we learned that this is not the correct thing to be saying, and it should be the car needs to be washed and the kids need to be picked up. And we’re all wondering why this is the correct way to say it.

So, Jill, you have a question that needs answered.

I do, indeed. It’s something that’s been bugging us for a long time.

Where did you go to college?

In Pennsylvania.

And we all went to college in Pennsylvania.

Okay.

What part of Pennsylvania?

Central Pennsylvania.

Okay.

All right.

So you got there and people weren’t saying it that way.

Right. And we were corrected.

You were corrected just casually. It wasn’t something that happened in the classroom?

No, not in the classroom, just casually.

Well, Jill, there are three things to say about this construction. Number one is that it’s a normal part of Scots grammar. In Scotland, you’ll hear this kind of construction. And what’s really cool is that if you look at the maps of where this is heard in this country, it pretty much mirrors the Scots-Irish migration patterns in the 17th and 18th century in the area where you live and going on west through Ohio and Indiana and parts of Illinois and also down the Appalachians and into the Ozarks. So it very closely mirrors that Scots-Irish migration pattern. And it’s kind of an echo of the way that those folks talked.

And another thing that’s really cool about this construction, so what I’m saying is that I wouldn’t say it’s wrong.

Would you, Grant?

I wouldn’t, no. I would not say it’s wrong. Absolutely not.

Yeah, and the other thing that’s really interesting about this particular construction is that it’s what we call sociolinguistically transparent. That is, it’s not really associated with a particular class or a particular gender. You’ll hear it in rural areas, and you’ll hear it in urban areas as well. And the other thing that’s really striking about this is that usually folks who use it are totally unaware that they’re using it, like you.

Right, yeah, I didn’t know.

And, you know, when I went to, I was hanging out with some friends this weekend and I posed this question to them. And when I said the car needs washed, they all kind of cringed. They thought this was a terrible thing to say.

Oh, really?

Yeah, to me it sounds perfectly normal.

Right, it sounds perfectly normal. And when I said earlier this is a question that needs answered, you said, yep, huh.

Right, yeah, I didn’t even notice it.

Huh, exactly.

Exactly, this is a perfect example.

Well, so the thing that I would say to you is that it’s not the dominant way of saying that kind of thing, but I would say it’s perfectly legitimate, although some people will kind of cringe.

You don’t think I could slip it into academic writing?

I probably wouldn’t get by the editors.

That’s a really good question. I would say that it’s not formal English. It’s not bad English, but it’s not formal English. And if you were trying to get an argument across, you might try to avoid it so people weren’t distracted by your dialect usage.

Right.

So, Jill, just think of yourself as bilingual, you know? I mean, you can kind of go back and forth. You can code switch.

I can be Pittsburghese. I could speak Pittsburghese, and then I could speak standard English.

Yeah, in other words, you know more than those people who are cringing. So I say go ahead and use it, but maybe not in the academic papers.

Okay, my sisters will be very glad to hear this.

All right.

Thanks for calling, Jill.

All right, thank you very much.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

There’s a lot of work to be done in this country to fix the idea that dialect pronunciations or dialect usages are something to be stomped out.

I agree with you, Grant. And in this one in particular, the first time I heard it, I admit I did a double take because I did not grow up talking that way. But now I find it kind of endearing, you know. It’s kind of just like a little thing that I recognize when people say. And I often ask them if they’re from the Pittsburgh area or around there.

Cool.

Well, if you’ve got a question about dialect pronunciations or something that somebody told you that you shouldn’t say, you should give us a call at 1-877-929-9673, and we’ll tell you whether or not they’re right.