On the Eight Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me
January 01st, 2026 by G.
(It gave me quite the frisson to drop this trivial bit of fool nonsense on top of Zen’s opus)
On the eight day of Christmas, my true love gave to me eight maids’a’milkin’. And the cows to go with them!
It made quite the procession down the road to my family’s old drafty keep.
Well, if there’s one thing we have plenty of, its probably land that’s fit only for grazing.
I said, “Is this because you think my complexion needs bathed in milk every day?”
He smiled. “It’s because I want our babies to be fat.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of your complexion…”
And then he was eloquent again.
Comments (3)
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
January 01st, 2026 08:43:50
William James Tychonievich
January 3, 2026
Saying “needs bathed” (rather than “needs bathing” or “needs to be bathed”) is supposed to be a distinctive grammatical feature of Ohioan English. How do you come to be using it?
G.
January 3, 2026
No idea, but it doesn’t feel like an affectation to me. I didn’t know that wasn’t standard.
Coincidentally, I was just reading a book on dialects seconds before I sat down and read your comment.
William James Tychonievich
January 3, 2026
I wonder if some linguistic holdovers from the Kirkland era still survive in certain corners of the Mormon Corridor. I never once encountered “need” plus past participle during my two years in Utah, though.