to be!

Preface: I'm going to take a risk with this post. The risk is that I will be opening myself up to all manner of criticisms about my blog postings' grammar, usage, and spelling. But I find what I'm about to describe so offensive that I feel I must take that chance.

Okay. I must tell you all (by "you all" I mean of course myself, since I'm fairly certain no one else reads this) about one of the most annoying affronts to the english language I've heard in quite a while. It's the ommission of the words "to be" after the verb "needs" in a phrases such as "my suitcase needs to be unpacked" or "my car needs to be fixed," which are instead rendered as "my suitcase needs packed" or "my car needs fixed." I fear this usage is becomming more and more common. Every day I hear statements at work like "Office 2007 needs installed" or "this hard drive needs replaced." It's infuriating, really. Seriously, does anyone actually think this sounds correct? At least the folks at alt.usage.english are on my side.