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I realize texted is not a word, but text doesn't seem appropriate in the above sentence. What would make more sense?

Orbling
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LizzybethQ
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6 Answers6

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If text is used as a verb, which it is, then its past tense and past participle are texted. As in

  • I texted you yesterday
  • I have texted you earlier today
  • I am texting you right now
  • I will text you tomorrow
Henry
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    I agree and thought this seemed obvious. I received a text that didn't use the past tense and realized I often get these. It was irksome to me so I decided to ask the question to see what types of responses I would solicit. Thanks! – LizzybethQ Feb 05 '11 at 19:09
7

I think "texted" is a perfectly acceptable, if informal word. I regularly say that I "grepped" something (from 'global regular expression'). It's a neologism - a newly emerging word.

If the informality bothers you, I would say that the more formal version would "text-messaged".

Chris B. Behrens
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    The more formal version would be "sent a text message", wouldn't it? –  Feb 05 '11 at 19:47
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    That's the active form - mine is the passive. Both are good. – Chris B. Behrens Feb 05 '11 at 20:21
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    I’d agree that both versions are good, but it’s not an active/passive distinction — both examples are active. A passive example would be something like “Hang on, I just got text-messaged by my sister.” (For more details on reliably identifying the passive than you probably ever want to know, see Geoff Pullum’s recent Language Log article…) – PLL Feb 06 '11 at 00:37
  • I would have given you a +1 for the first part of your answer, but the last part where you say it is an alternative to use "text-messaged" is a reason to give -1, so I end up not voting on this. "To text" is a quite new use, which is a short form of "To send someone a text message". "To text-message" is not something that is used. The more formal version would rather be as @Rahul Narain said in his comment. – awe Aug 15 '11 at 07:20
  • Nothing informal about it. It's listed in both the OED and M-W with past tense of texted. – AnWulf Feb 19 '12 at 12:09
  • @Anwulf - good to know...then it's no longer even a neologism. – Chris B. Behrens Feb 19 '12 at 22:01
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text, in that sense as a verb, was not a word until they adopted it for the new technology.

Personally I adopted texted at the same time for past tense usage.

Orbling
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I agree that texted is not a "word". But as far as words go, I would personally use texted. It does sound awkward, however the official past tense of to text is texted.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/text

He texted a long wish list to his parents two days before his eighteenth birthday.

apaderno
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muncherelli
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Texted is a word and is the past tense. See the byspels at both Merriam-Webster:
I texted her a little while ago.
I texted a message to her.
She just texted me back.

and the ODO:
send (someone) a text message: if she was {sic} going to go she would have texted us

*If she were going to go ... (subjunctive)

Arm the good guys in America
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AnWulf
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I text her.

If a word can stand alone without adding -ed then the correct word to use would be "text". I text her yesterday stands alone without adding -ed.

Dog Lover
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Linda white
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    I'm not sure I understand all of what you're saying, Linda white, but the broad implication of it seems to be that we would scarcely ever have occasion to use verbs with -ed endings. Please consider citing an authoritative reference work that supports the point you are trying to make here. – Sven Yargs Jul 26 '15 at 05:40