Newish verbs

[NotWise]

My word processor's spell checker doesn't recognize "text" as a verb, as in "I'll text you when I'm done." As a result "texted," and "texting" are always flagged as spelling errors. Maybe oddly, the language checker doesn't puke on the example above.

I think I can fix the spell checker, but I wonder if I should. When Word first came equipped with a spell checker we had a secretary in one of our offices who "updated" it with a lot of misspellings, which rendered it fairly useless. As a result, I've always been reticent about adding things.

Is the usage of "text" as a verb widespread? If it isn't just the local dialect then maybe I'll update the spell checker.

 

[holliday1960]

Fuck is a verb, but you don't find it in most dictionaries. Just hit the "ignore all" in your spell checker.

 

[RejectReality]

I personally just skip each of those when they're flagged during a spell check. I don't like skip all for "new" verbs like that created from existing words.

I only use it for dirty words and unique names that don't resemble everyday words. I still don't add those, even when I use the word/term/name in multiple stories. I just do the skip all on each document.

It's really not worth potentially introducing a multi-document mistake.

 

[yukonnights]

It seems to me that if you truly intended to write "text" in the conventional sense, it would be hard to misspell it as 'texting'. My spell checker has a "learn spelling" option which I use quite a lot.

 

[Handley_Page]

Yes, Add it.

 

[RejectReality]

How often are you really going to use "texted" in any individual document? If it's enough to cause you grief hitting the skip button each time, you might consider rewording a few of them for variety.

If you add it, the next time your finger slips while typing tested it's going to skip right over that mistake.

 

[SimonDoom]

It is very widespread.

It's recognized as a verb at merriam-webster.com.

I think you are on solid ground using "text" as a verb in any work of creative writing today.

 

[NotWise]

How often are you really going to use "texted" in any individual document? If it's enough to cause you grief hitting the skip button each time, you might consider rewording a few of them for variety.

If you add it, the next time your finger slips while typing tested it's going to skip right over that mistake.

There are quite a few examples like that in the dictionary. I probably don't need to worry too much about adding another.

"text" occurs as a verb six times in the piece I'm working on now. There would probably be more occurrences if the spell checker didn't annoy me. It occurs in "text message" several more times. The protagonists (as in my real life) usually communicate by text when they aren't face-to-face, so it comes up fairly frequently.

An alternative is to use "messaged" and "messaging," which my spell checker does accept but I've rarely heard people use "message" as a verb.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Go to one of the online dictionaries and see what they say about it. If it's correct then add it to spell check.