Monday, November 7, 2011

To Text: An Unhappy Consequence

Really.  How the hell did we get saddled with the word text as a verb?

How do you pronounce the third person singular?  He, she or it texts.  Does that rhyme with Tex or Texas? 

To this problem there's a nexus
Every day my daughter texts.

Is that how it is said?

I believe that there are some languages that have only the present tense, maybe Aluete or French or something.  Unhappily in English we also have a past tense which in the case at hand leads us to

Yesterday my son texted (?) me five times.  How are you supposed to say that?

I wonder how this has worked out in Spanish where there are two past tenses.  How do you suppose that works? 

Present tense (if text happens to be an er verb):

Yo texto

Tu textes

Elle texte

Nosotros textemos

Ellos texten

Past tense (if its an ar verb):

Yo texte or textaba

I can't go on. Not even sure these are right.  But I'm pretty sure the verb to text is going to vex us for a long time.