RE: Verbing text

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Peter Neilson wrote: 
 
> The word "text" has now become a verb. Although I do not use the
feature
> on my cell phone, apparently there are many who do. In school, it's a
> neat way of passing notes to other students, something that was
/streng
> verboten/ when I was a wee lad.

Hey, that's relatively harmless. Much more dangerous is the growing
phenomenon of texting (there's your participle) while driving, which
almost half of teens nationwide admit to doing. The level of distraction
this can lead to is sometimes difficult to believe: 

http://rgcombs.blog-city.com/texter_hits_train.htm
 
> Immediately the question arises, what are the principle parts of the
> verb "to text"?
> 
> Present: text
> Past (and pret?): texted, texed, text, textated, taxed, texxt - the
> possibilities are endless. I prefer, "Sent a text message to."

I find all but the last repellent. But then, I'm an old fogey.
 
> What do you techwhirlers do?
> 
> Am I into a useful question here, or am I slowly becoming unhinged?

What makes you think those are mutually exclusive? ;-)

Richard


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------






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