She text me

[Dionysiana]

I see this so often on MN; “text” used as the past tense instead of “texted”. Is this becoming accepted usage in the UK? I live abroad so am out of touch with new developments. But the birth of a new irregular verb seems odd.

I’m normally a pedant but interestingly this one just seems to make sense to short to text for past too 😂

Because the comment on the académie française made me think of the whole covid masculin/feminin debate. It should be la covid (disease = maladie = feminin) but the vast majority of people say le covid. There's a short article on their website about it, the last sentence made me chuckle.

www.academie-francaise.fr/le-covid-19-ou-la-covid-19

Matbe Scent and I should set up The English Academy (I'm afraid I agree with her on this).

Ffs typo. Nvmnd.

Thanks for that, très intéressant!

I'd happily contribute funds to set up a language regulator which would enforce "texted" over "text"- I never said I liked it, just that we have to live with it.

On The Archers tonight someone - possibly Lilian - said 'texted'. Clincher. Say no more.🙂

On radio this morning someone said something like this :- "What did you input?" The reply began, "I inputted............ ." Now, what would you have done there? I am very happy with 'texted' but my instinct would have been to say, "Yesterday I input........... ." I am a person without consistency!!

Upinaballoon, that would also make me pause because there’s such a strong influence from the longstanding irregular verb put-put-put. But new verbs are almost invariably regular (“-ed” endings in past tense). As a translator, this is why I find past tense “text” so fascinating. Am I seeing an irregular verb actually in the process of being created? Or simply an instance of poor language use? And is there a clear line between the two? There isn’t an “academy of language” for English as there is for many other languages, and so English dictionaries simply describe rather than prescribe use. Perhaps the new verb “text” is on its way to becoming irregular (and perhaps “input” will follow because of the influence of “put”).

Poor language use, probably, @Dionysiana .

I have only ever known 'input' used as a noun . However, if it is now used as a verb , I would use 'input' as the past tense . After all , we don't say ' I putted my book on the table' .

I remember raising the text one on MN some time ago and being shouted down on the basis that it was claimed that "texted" is difficult to say. For the life of me, I can't see why.

On radio this morning someone said something like this :- "What did you input?"

Surely the verb of 'input' is to put in.

Yesterday I put xxx in.

I remember raising the text one on MN some time ago and being shouted down on the basis that it was claimed that "texted" is difficult to say. For the life of me, I can't see why.

How lazy can people get? It's no harder than saying tempted. On that basis maybe we should start saying "I was tempt to buy it, but resisted"

@MissBattleaxe , did you mean "I was tempt to buy it, but resist"?

@PedantScorner Yes! Sorry, I was nearly half grammatical there!

Apology except, @MissBattleaxe .

I've seen 'love ones' a few times.