I text her vs I texted her

[Comito]

For some reason, people saying 'I text her' rather than 'I texted her' (past tense) really grates on me. What should it be?

I don't believe there is such a word as texted. It looks and sounds ridiculous. Text can be used for both.

This was bugging me at around 4am one night last week!

Yesterday I call her ...

Yesterday I email her ..

Yesterday I text her ...

Text is a noun and a verb, just like call and email.

If it is used as a verb, it should be conjugated just like any regular verb, by adding -ed at the end.

Waltons, that was my feeling too. Both looked slightly odd though, hence my query.

I prefer texted. I don't like text at all. I've also heard people call them texes, and I don't like that either.

'Texes'! >shudder<

Like 'listicles'. Just yuk.

"Text" isn't a verb, surely. It should be "I sent her a text".

Same with email.

"To call" IS a verb, so "I called her" and "I call her" are both gramatically correct, depending on the context.

IMO the only acceptable way is "I sent her a text"

Texted is probably right but sounds all wrong.

Phone isn't a verb either, but "I phoned her" is acceptable (if old fashioned), isn't it?

I say 'I sent her a text' to avoid the issue.

Texted sounds just wrong to me.

'I texted her' sounds as bad as 'I lefted the party early'.

People assure me I'm wrong though.

I had to check, at risk of getting with wrong molly but phone is a verb (and a noun) according to my dictionary.

Namechanger - stop it!!!
Flogging - "To telephone" is a verb, so so is "to phone".

Texted. Much like Facebooked and Whatsapped. Yes, these are appalling terms but they are slightly less appalling than appropriating the noun on its own to form the preterite or past participle.

When phones were first invented, people spoke of 'telephoning to' someone, which makes perfect sense but sounds odd to modern ears.

SMS is a specific technology though - texting and instant messaging are now almost interchangeable terms (although I personally only use text for SMS).

New verbs in English pretty much always take the 'regular' -ed past tense. Hence, as someone has said, as well as 'texted' we have 'Facebooked', 'e-mailed' (or now more probably 'emailed'), 'Hoovered' and of course 'phoned'. All those verbs start off as nouns. And when children are learning to speak they often form -ed past tenses of verbs that have 'irregular' pasts eg I goed, I sleeped.

'Text' would be a very unusual form in the past tense and is probably used because of analogy with 'irregular' past tenses such as 'went' and 'spent' which have different present tenses. There is though at least one precedent (and probably others but this is just the one I thought of); 'let' is the same in the present and past.

Don't have a go at NameChanger. Nouns turning to verbs is a perfectly normal process. I do agree that it would then be expected to behave like any other regular verb and add ed in the past tense.

I would say messaged. I never say text nor texted.

If that's aimed at me Dad - it was meant to be funny

'Texted' is the past tense. 'I text her' is just wrong. It's common to make nouns verbs - impact, Facebooked, etc.

I hate, hate, hate 'text' as a past participle. I don't spend much time here in Pedants' corner, but I'm sure I started my own thread about it once. If I didn't, I should have done. In my view, 'texted' only sounds wrong because we've become so accustomed to being subjected to the appalling 'text'.

I would say "I sent a text" or at a push "texted" I would never ever say "I text her" as a past tense. Just plain wrong.

Texted would be correct. "I text her" sounds like baby talk. i.e "Yesterday I phone her" would be wrong but "Yesterday I phoned her" would be correct.

It is therefore correct to say texted.

We have to accept the evolution of language and new fangled words being added to the OED every year, but we don't have to accept a failure at correct conjugation of new verbs.