texted

[Baker, John]

        In writing, I use "text" as the base form and present tense, and
I use "texted" as the past tense.  When I am careful about
pronunciation, I pronounce all of these as /tEkst/, but in ordinary
speech I am pronounce any of them as /tEks/.  I write the third person
singular as "texts" and try to pronounce it as /tEksts/, although I have
trouble with the /ksts/ combination.

        I am interested in all comments and do not claim that this
represents anything other than my personal idiosyncrasies.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Arnold Zwicky
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 2:24 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: texted

On Mar 11, 2009, at 10:34 AM, John Baker wrote:

>
>        I recently was surprised to hear my adult nephew and niece
> pronounce "texted" with two syllables.  I am forced to admit the logic

> of that pronunciation, since I pronounce "text" and "texted" as
> homophones, but it still sounds weird to me.

you're not alone; see

http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/whats-the-past-tense-of-the
-verb-text/

but let me get this right: you write TEXTED but pronounce it /tEkst/?
or do you just spell past /tEkst/ TEXT?

what about the base form of the verb (as in "I like to text")?  is this
also /tEkst/?  i ask this because it's been suggested to me by several
people that some speakers with past /tEkst/ have analyzed the verb as
having the stem /tEks/, so that /tEkst/ would just be the regular past.
if so, the base form would be /tEks/ (spelled either TEX or TEXT),  the
present would be /tEks at z/ (possibly spelled TEXES, but maybe TEXTS), and
the present participle would be /tEksIN/ (spelled with TEXING or
TEXTING).

i think that most people with past /tEkst/ have just moved the verb
"text" into the "cut"/"put" class, with PST/PSP identical to the base
form (and the non-3sg present form).   but there are other
possibilities.

arnold

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