• stoly@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    I think you’d call this elision. Assume that the phrase is originally “the car needs to be washed” but you cut out “to be”, making it into a shorter form. It’s pretty common in language to shorten things to make it faster to speak. Think of the endless contractions in English or perhaps leaving part of a sentence completely unspoken because the content is easily assumed by the interlocutors.

    • JWBananas@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Worse, to me, is that there is a perfectly grammatically correct way to be just as brief.

      Wrong:

      The bed sheets need washed.

      Right:

      The bed sheets need washing.