'Texes' as plural of 'text (message)'

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Damien Hall wrote:
>
> We've been hearing for a while about the cluster simplification at the end of the
> word 'text', which has resulted in the following common pronunciations:
>
> - [tEks] for 'text'
>
> - [tEkst] for 'texted' (presumably from the verb [tEks] + the past-tense ending [-t],
> with expected devoicing following a voiceless consonant, but of course therefore
> homonymous with the non-cluster-reduced word 'text')
>
> However, this morning I heard the new-to-me form [tEksIz] for the plural noun 'texts'.
> Again, this is the regular outcome of noun [tEks] + plural [-Iz].  Surely this has
> been around for a bit (logically, it might have been);  have others heard it?  The
> speaker was white, 30-something, looking fairly preppy, BrE.  Apologies if this is
> research that's already been done.

I await George Strait's remake of his country hit as "All My Exes Send
Me Texes."

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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