"Need be" vs. "Needs to be"

Question

I've written the following in a sentence, but now that I look at it, I'm doubting my grammatical instincts and wanted to get a second opinion.

...the balance need be swayed only slightly...

Is the use of "need be" here correct? I read this as essentially identical to:

...the balance needs to be swayed only slightly...

but I haven't been able to find any other written uses of the first syntax. Formal references for this usage would be appreciated, but more general comments are of course welcome. Thanks!

It is difficult to tell because you have not given complete sentences. Grammar depends partly on context. — chasly - supports Monica, Oct 20 '15 at 21:42
I can hardly say the word need be used, since that's 395 written instances without it. But Google Books claims to have 1,140 instances pointing out that the word needs to* be used*. Without *to*, it seems rather dated to me. — FumbleFingers, Oct 20 '15 at 21:44
If you inflect to needs, it is no longer a modal so needs the to. If you do not, it does not. — tchrist, Oct 21 '15 at 02:55
@tchrist Basically you are saying that "It needs be" is incorrect, but "It need be" or "It needs to be" are correct? — odalet, Jul 19 '20 at 12:15

Colin Fine · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-22T22:57:34.603

10

Both are fine. Need, like dare, is sometimes called a "semi-modal", in that it can be used like modals (eg can, may) but can also be used as a normal verb (eg like want).

So The balance need be swayed only slightly is parallel to The balance can be swayed only slightly (the meaning is different - this is just showing the syntax); whereas The balance needs to be swayed only slightly is parallel to The balance requires to be swayed only slightly.

I believe that the modal use is becoming less common, and I suspect it is altogether less common in US English than in UK, but I'm not sure about that.

edited Oct 22 '15 at 22:57

answered Oct 20 '15 at 23:54

Colin Fine

77,173

Excellent point, my mind automatically jumped to the idiomatic usage. That being said, "need be" denotes necessity and "can be" denotes either limit or option, no? That is, doesn't the usage "need be" express that "the necessary 'amount of sway' that the balance requires is 'slight'"; whereas the usage "can be" expresses that "the degree to which it is possible to 'sway the balance' is 'slight'"? That is, the first formulation tells us what is the threshold and the second formulation tells us what is the limit. – moismailzai Oct 21 '15 at 00:34
1

Sure. I was using can be only as a syntactic parallel: I didn't mean to suggest that it was similar in meaning. I'll edit to show this. – Colin Fine Oct 22 '15 at 22:55

score -1 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 05 '21 at 15:10

-1

In "it needs to be....." / "it need to be......" need is used as a verb not as a modal auxiliary. Because, with no modal auxiliary we use "to be", right?

So, it should be "it needs to be...."always which means "needs" here is the s form of NEED.

edited Feb 05 '21 at 15:10

KillingTime

6,206

answered Feb 05 '21 at 15:07

Sujith Peravoor

1

"Need be" vs. "Needs to be"

2 Answers2