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6:24PM
Aug-23-10
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Garry Shirts
| | Garry | |
| Member | posts 43 | |
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Is the past tense of texting text ed as in blast ed or treat ed or is it like wrecked or tracked?
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4:11AM
Aug-24-10
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Bob Bridges
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Post edited 4:14AM – Aug-24-10 by Bob Bridges
You're asking about the pronunciation rather than the spelling, right? This one is easy. When a word ends in one of the sounds 's', 'z', 'sh' or 'zh'—sound, not letter—then its plural (or the third-person singular verb) has the additional vowel to separate the two sibilants. "Dogs" is pronounced /dAgz/ and "cats" is pronounced /kats/; but "busses" is pronounced /bVs@z/, "buzzes" /bVz@z/, "cashes" /kaS@z/ and … I can' think of a word that ends in '-zh' just now, but you get the idea.
Likewise, a word that ends in a '-d' or '-t' sound has the additional schwa to separate when you add "-ed": "Backed" is pronounced /bakt/ and "bagged" /baIgd/, but "breaded" is /brEd@d/ and "texted" is /tEkst@d/.[Moments later:] Oh, of course: Any word that ends in the sounds '-tch' or '-dge' ends in '-sh' or '-zh', too, so "batches" is pronounced /batS@s/ and "badges" /badZ@s/.
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6:26AM
Aug-24-10
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Garry Shirts
| | Garry | |
| Member | posts 43 | |
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Wow that's great. Thanks.
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2:21PM
Aug-24-10
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Glenn
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Post edited 2:24PM – Aug-24-10 by Glenn
Garry Shirts said:
Is the past tense of texting text ed as in blast ed or treat ed or is it like wrecked or tracked?
Of course, Bob is completely correct.
But, I think there might be more to your question than first meets the eye. I have often heard /tekst/ with a past meaning for the action of texting. I have also often heard the verb text casually pronounced as /teks/. (*Tex me when you get there.) This casual pronunciation, based on the rules Bob accurately describes, would result in a past tense form pronounced /tekst/. This treatment, while far from standard, still follows the phonetic rules above, just as if the verb were spelled *tex with a past tense of *texed. (c.f. hex, hexed)
I do not recommend that one adopt the casual pronunciation. However, the alternate spellings of txt and txtd are perfectly acceptable. (wink)
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3:06PM
Aug-24-10
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Bob Bridges
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| Member | posts 256 | |
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Hmm. Normally I'd complain about the sloppy pronunciation, but it occurs to me that something like that in reverse is going on in the American South, where quite a few people apparently think you can die by drownding. So if someone drownds in the present tense, he drownded in the past. I correct it when my wife or kids say it, but not for a stranger. (Southerners are funny about that.) So maybe I shouldn't be too quick to complain about "texed", too.
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7:22PM
Aug-24-10
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dilettante
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Drownded: Not just in the American South.
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