smallwhite wrote:Interesting! Thank you for everyone's input!
There are
about 48,000 Google results for "
things that needed done",
about 208,000 for "
that needed done", and
about 14,800 for "
that needed taken care of".
"Taken care of" and "done" are actually kind of synonymous in "[s]o many things that needed taken care of".
I'm surprised a non-native (me) who hasn't watched TV much and has not interacted with natives much, is sure about the regional and colloquial usage "things that needed done" and says "I who needed taken care of", while natives say they have never heard it. Where have I been learning my English from?
I just repeated your Google search for "
that needed taken care of" and got the same number of hits - 14,800. I am convinced that this is "wrong" or regional American usage.
I also googled "
that I needed taken care of" and got only 10,900 hits - but I am sure that this is correct usage and I'm sure that other native speakers on this forum will agree with that. Some things just don't get a lot of hits.
Where have you been learning your English from? Maybe you've been reading Yelp reviews for American mechanics?
I suspect that you may have misheard "I needed taking care of" as "I needed taking care of". They sound very very close, sometimes exactly the same in the mouths of many Australians and, I think, Americans. Actually, I guess that means you didn't mishear as such, maybe you just thought it was "taken" when people were saying "taking". Or maybe those people did mean to say "taken" like they mean to say "should of". I think it's all about unstressed vowels in rapid casual speech (and dropping the nasal g in this case). Certainly, the 14,800 hits demonstrate that some people believe it to be correct. That may be a result of the "mishearing" of the end of the participle or may be a result of them feeling comfortable dropping the "to be" or the subject - certainly seeing those hits for "done" would suggest that's a strong possibility.
So, if were you, I would be saying.
"I needed taking care of"
"I needed to be taken care of"
or,
"I had things that I needed taken care of" but that has a slightly different meaning - your friends are taking care of your tasks/errands/etc rather than taking care of you directly.
And finally, I hope you are feeling better, now!