Am I the only person who has been infected with the crazy predictive text virus. The other day I tried to type Shaun the Sheep. Helpfully my predictive text modified that to Shave the Sheep.

Predictive text is brilliant. It usually does a wonderful job of correcting my appalling spelling and grammar. Unfortunately it is still not advanced enough to sort out my Where, were, we’re, there, their, they’re nightmares. It’s wonderful for those with dyslexia – why our son’s current school switches it off is beyond me.

So yes it is one of our great modern inventions. But mine has developed its own personality. Remember Skynet in Terminator. A slightly cunning, playful one. It does like to embarrass me.

  • On an important report which went to Area Commanders it decided to call them Arse Commanders,
  • I have to frequently email someone with the name Dobbs. I don’t know how many times I’ve called them Dons,
  • It has issues with names. It embarrassingly drops the r from my name. A work colleague called Jock is frequently referred to as Joke. And a friend called Jono becomes Bono (wouldn’t wish that on anyone),
  • Turnkey solutions becomes Turkey solutions,
  • Referring to someone as a Pillock morphs into a Pill Keep,
  • I entered a competition to win a big TV. Strangely I didn’t win when it changed my answer Gollum to Volume.
  • Maybe the autocorrect has got used to me drinking coffee but every time I start to type the words expression or express it changes them to espresso,
  • I was typing about a particular politician who I found to be very phoney. Unfortunately this came out as I found him very bony,
  • It’s definitely a little morbid as it loves to change Dear to Dead,
  • It clearly has a low opinion of our PM as his name always comes out as Boring Johnson,
  • And yesterday while responding to a comment about Tom Jones and throwing my underpants at him. I tried to say that my underpants where Locked and loaded ready to the thrown. Oh no my predictive system changed it that to my pants where Licked and loaded. Oh the shame.

96 thoughts on “Autocorrect”

  5. I have that same problem, some things are totally off the wall! The worst is after you’ve corrected it yourself, push send, it appears to override you and shows up wrong!😳🤪

    Sent from my iPad

    >

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  10. Yeah, I’ve had embarrasing moments with it too. I tried to turn it off once. Apparently I can’t type anything right without it though. So as much of a pain it can be, atleast you can understand what I’m typing. No seriously, it changes are least every second word for me. I just have to double check it didn’t change the wrong thing. Lol…

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    1. Mine is shut off. Yeah, a lot of typos get through, but at least they are my typos, not some AI version of what a machine thinks I’m trying to say. Gob fordib!
      Meanwhile, Gary, is that why “rhubarb” always comes out “rhubard”?

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      2. Be real, Gary, your writing does not need mechanhcal failures to impress people, you do that all on your own. You have a wry vision of life that comes vivid in your words.

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  11. 😂😂😂 hilarious … someone very reserved and proper had to text me recently… they are VERY formal – never swear nothing … always very professional…

    Their text SHOULD have said… “I am leaving for a little bit… I will bring you the wires, but Steve will “hook” it up”

    INSTEAD… their text read… “I am leaving for a little bit, I will bring you the wires, but Steve will “F***” it up”

    Oh my god! I was almost peeing my pants laughing so hard 😄😄 they IMMEDIATELY called to profusely apologize and tell me what they were really saying 😂😂 they were completely mortified!!!

    I just REALLY enjoyed the laugh 😄❤️

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      1. Lol totally comedy gold!! Love every single one of those moments!! ❤️

        When Steve had showed up to “hook” up the wires … I said “hey, don’t go f’ing it up ok?” Lol … he was like what? 😄😄😄 I just teasing you – but I couldn’t stop laughing, and I could only think of Steve f’ing it up lol 😄✌️

        I actually love auto correct … EXCEPT when it does it to me lol😄✌️

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  13. Autocorrect is my nemesis! I’ve tried to fight it, changed words back, but it overrides me🤷🏼‍♀️ People here are used to the odd words here and there, but when one word completely changes the context… it can be hysterical or mortifying!
    You might wanna Shave that Sheep, it’s got red on it😂💌

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  14. I’m trying to get my youngest off to sleep but it’s pretty impossible to sit here quietly, as every one of those made me laugh unexpectedly!!!

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  15. Predictive text is like VAR: creates way more problems than it solves! I once publicly messaged a friend whose cat was ill and said, “Fingers crossed for the dear boy” or some such thing, and it changed it to “dead boy”. And the cat died after that. 😳

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    2. Ha ha. That is brill. Look I mind once it was when I edited this hist mag. Anyway, not only was there this guy who did a rock solid column in terms of no errors, there was a proof reader who would Hawkeye to shame. Nothing passed her. Nothing. So i am sitting there 4 30 one Fri, twiddling my thumbs, things gone to be printed and we are all good, when I glances over his page and I see that instead of exhorting the great qualities and pride taken in the window display, he has written widow display and I have this surreal vision of all these old dearies parading up and down in their drawers hoping for a taker and the flack we would take. You can bet my ass never moved so fast to pull that copy.

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  19. Mine annoyingly does not correct “goid” to “good” and frequently inserts random words or abbreviations into the middle of my typing. I’ve had to delete a lot of the embedded dictionary entries!

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  22. My worst one concerned a young client named Geraldine…she always referred to herself as “Geri”…I sent her a text one day beginning with Hi Geriatric…” btw it did it here just now..

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  28. I shut off that auto-correct nonsense on my phone as soon as I took possession of it. I will screw up my own words, thank you. I don’t need a phone to do it for me. I’ll own my fat fingered confusion.

    Typing on my laptop, there isn’t any auto-correct, thank goodness.

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  30. lolol….cute! hey, quick question..i saw on “wikipedia” info that this Boris Johnson dude was implementing the “herd immunity”, as opposed to quarantining and was wondering 1. is this true and 2.if so, how is this working?

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    1. They did last week. Looking to get 60% of the fit and young infected ASAP. But the models they are using suddenly reflected the obvious. That means 48 million people. That’s means 200,000 deaths. So it’s been kinda dropped this week and we are closing stuff down now and trying to slow the spread. All schools have just been closed from Friday. They will only open for the kids of key workers and vulnerable kids as well.

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  31. One of my editors and I text frequently about my books. Now autocorrect is convinced that every third or fourth word I type will be “serial killer”. This makes for interesting predictive text games where everyone can be sure my answer will have something to do with a serial killer and God forbid I misspell a word that starts with “s” because my phone knows the real word is meant to be serial killer.

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  33. I’ve been reading your blog here during the lockdown in NJ USA. Yes, Trump is an absolute ass. But, you made me laugh out loud. Thank you.

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