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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?

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I meant not a word* – LizzybethQ Feb 5 '11 at 18:49
Oh, sorry just saw your comment here ;) – muncherelli Feb 5 '11 at 19:02
Had I used the word "texting" incorrectly in this Tweet? – Геннадий-Ванин Feb 13 '11 at 5:37

5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

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
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4  
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 5 '11 at 19:09
up vote 5 down vote

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".

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The more formal version would be "sent a text message", wouldn't it? – Rahul Narain Feb 5 '11 at 19:47
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That's the active form - mine is the passive. Both are good. – Chris B. Behrens Feb 5 '11 at 20:21
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 6 '11 at 0:37
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 7:20
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
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up vote 2 down vote

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.

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up vote 1 down vote

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.

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up vote 0 down vote

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

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

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