I am an elementary school teacher with the audacity to require that my parents make a strategic effort to use the grammatically correct form of English with their children at home, as unfortunately, the color of their skin or even the intonation of their phrasing would be enough to cut them out of a job without adding the further impediment of a dialect perceived as a measure of intellect or ability. While teaching regular verbs in the past tense, I invariably have to state the rule someone mentioned further back in the thread: Regular verbs whose roots end in "t" or "d" always get a sounded "e", while all other regular verbs get a silent "e" when (-ed) is added. What I noticed is that my students will often overkill attempts to refrain from sounding the "ed" as "dead"(as in drop-ded), by neglecting to sound the "e" in ANY word which has the suffix (-ed). What sticks with them is that the sound of "dead" is "bad"(overgeneralization and classic modern day American problem -that of overgeneralization or taking things to extremes without thought - which will ultimately be our country's downfall as there are those poised to capitalize on this weakness) Back to the matter at hand, my urban 6 year olds forget that, in some cases, when following the rules, of the English language, you will hear "dead" or "ted" at the ends of regular verbs. Since it the word "text" now has widespread use as a verb and it endss in "t", it should be pronoinced TEX-TED, following the traditional rules of English, which is NOT the same as saying fix-ded or drop-ded, but probably evokes some feelings of wrongness (not a word) due to your elementary school teacher harping on wrkng uses of ted or ded or ed. Personally, I stick with the rules of English, but I assume that what rolls off the tongue most naturally for the majority of Americans is what will prevail in the end. Such is the way of the American masses. Whether it makes me and other lovers of language and diction cringe and whether rules of grammar are breached are moot at thus point in our country's evolution. Really important is whether we CAN and will attempt to understand each other when we commimicate. I will mot, however, be berated for following correct rules of English grammar before the rules have officially been changed. I think that is what bothers me about this debate. Also, what bothers me is the inability of some to acquire new information and an accompanyg set of rules and discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate applications of those rules.For those who call to mind the irregular verbs ending in "t", look up the reasons for their irregularity.