Danyel
My hair needs TO BE CUT ... or My hair needs TO BE CUT & My hair needs CUTTING & My hair needs TO BE CUTTING Which one of the examples is correct to say?
Jul 7, 2013 7:31 AM
Answers · 7
2
"My hair needs TO BE CUT" & "My hair needs CUTTING" are both correct. They don't say who will provide the haircut—it may be someone else, or it maybe the person will cut his/her own hair. To make it clear that someone else will do it (e.g., a barber) you need to add a form of "get" or "have," e.g., "I need to get my hair cut/I need to have my hair cut." This is known as the passive causative form, and it is used to show that someone other then you will be doing an action.
July 7, 2013
1
For the moment, swap out the cutting of hair for the fixing of a car, as Entisar did. My car needs to be fixed. - Lovely. My car needs fixing. - *I* don't love it, but I think it's acceptable in varieties of English. My car needs fixed. - I *really* don't love it, but I've heard it. I think it's a Midwest thing (?). My car needs to be fixing. - Wrong, wrong, wrong. Walk away. :) So from the standpoint of grammar and analogy, that theoretically allows us: My hair needs to be cut. - Lovely. My hair needs cutting. - *I* don't love it, but I think it's acceptable in varieties of English. My hair needs cut. - I *really* don't love it, nor have I heard it. Since this makes me wince and cringe, and I can't even attest its existence, *I* would avoid this if I were you. My hair needs to be cutting. - Wrong, wrong, wrong. Should not even be on the radar. All that said, as Entisar points out, making your hair the subject of this sentence just sounds a little unnatural in conversational English. So, back to the car: I need to have/get my car fixed. - Lovely. and so: I need to have/get my hair cut. - There you go! I need to get a haircut. - Also perfectly acceptable. But do note, as Entisar also points out, that while: I need to get my hair cut. and I need to get a haircut. *sound* like much of a muchness (and in terms of meaning, they *are*), there are in fact different underlying grammatical structures in play.
July 7, 2013
1
"I want my hair cut" is fine, it sounds best to me. "I want to get my hair cut" is good AE usage, and "I want a haircut" or "I want to get a haircut" are even more common. "I want my hair to be cut" doesn't sound right, even if it's technically grammatical. "I want something done about it"-- the "to be" is so often implied, at least in AE. "I want it known"-- not "to be known," though both are possible. The one-word form "haircut" is a noun and direct object of "want," so that's a different and simpler (therefore better?) construction than "I want object (to be, implied) verbed." Similarly, "I want my car repaired." Hope I helped you. Resource: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=38806
July 7, 2013
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