The paradox of autocorrect. SO much easier when texting. SO much more annoying when texting. Enraging, enraging, enraging. Easier, easier, easier. Funnier, funnier, funnier.
What do you think? In which category/categories of autocorrect/predicted text reactions (hi to my European friends) do you usually fall? I’m really thinking about this. Funnier and easier would have probably tied, with enraged a little less, at the beginning of my texting life. Now it’s less funny and more enraging. My spelling is good. Which is a good trait when one is an English teacher. So when my partly human device changes what I’m writing, it’s really annoying. And I text REALLY fast. Therefore, I often don’t see the little change thingy that comes up and text past it. And unless I edit the way I would a blog or essay (which defeats the ease of texting), I hit send and then realize with horror/humor/embarrassment that the message was changed in some way. And, of course, I think it’s much funnier when other people’s texts are autocorrected in a unique way. Personal favorites:
1. My daughter became enraged at the autocorrect on her phone. In frustration and anger, she maniacally typed in about 30 letters that made no sense. When she glanced at the screen, the partly human device had changed that long diatribe of letters to KILL. Now that’s funny.
2. I tried to text my husband, referring to an earlier blog post this month, that my friend said I should have warned her not to read “Car seats in heaven” at work. Hit send. Except it autocorrected to “she said bishops have warned her not to read ‘Car seats in heaven’ at work.” His response was what in the world do bishops have to do with that? Which bishops? Funny.
3. I drop my phone. A lot. So I have the huge rubbery yet hard iPhone cover that is inches thick (exaggerating). It is impossible to type quickly and hit the letters on the right and left edges correctly. I haven’t written the word “play” correctly since I got this iPhone. Ever. But I send “okay” instead. A lot. Funny….not.
4. When I first encountered the paradox of autocorrecting, I texted one of my friends. Thank God I looked before hitting send. A word or phrase that I no longer remember was changed to the “n_____” word. Utter horror.
5. The partly human device never corrects the word “autocorrect.” Some programmer gleefully devised that glitch. I’m certain of it.
And your favorite examples are………………….?
saneteachers 
First of all, I am a horrible speller so often times when I attempt a word autocorrect doesn’t even have a clue what I’m trying to write. It’s really shameful. The funniest autocorrect scenario for me was when I wanted to text my husband “hi. I’m going to hang out with erica. Her husband is DJing tonight. It’s going to awesome.” It changed DJing to dying. So I said my friends husband was dying tonight and it was going to be awesome! I didn’t catch the change at first so when he wrote back “what? Why? That’s horrible…” I went off on him for being controlling and how rude it was to call him horrible. It took awhile before I realized what had happened! Then there is the obvious annoying change of my fave word to ducking. I really just want to know what ducking is so just once I can use it purposely.
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I was crying I was laughing so hard! And I didn’t even address ducking. SO ANNOYING!!
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Reblogged this on saneteachers.
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Hate these useless devices. This is a great post though. Very clever.These autospellcheckerpredictivetextthingies are a pain in the backside. Ihavefoundthatdoingthisreallyannoysthem. All the best. Kris
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What a great response! When I’m texting on my iPhone, (and I text fast), frequently I’ll hit the letter “b” instead of the space bar. Sobibgetblongbsentencesb limbs this. And even this time it changed like to limbs because of all the “b”s. ENRAGES me.
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I was experiencing the same frustration yesterday while entering text in a spreadsheet. Autocorrect forces the beginning of sentences to be capitalized. But on this occasion, for technical reasons, I needed the beginning of my sentences to be lowercase. After a tiny bit of cursing, hairpulling, and mulling on murderous thoughts, I figured out that if I hit Control-Z immediately after the autocorrect, the so-called “correction” was undone.
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So frustrating! And that’s good to know about ctrl z
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It’s a love hate relationship. I don’t know how else to feel about it. I send a text or reply to a post and I have no idea what I wrote. Just like now. I had to correct my autocorrect.
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That happened to me last night when I was commenting on someone else’s post. I wrote, correctly, “mortician,” and it ironically autocorrected to “politician.” Lol
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Lol…yeah, sometimes the wording gets bizarre
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what’s this ortocorrect? Some kind of car reepair?
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Haha. I wish!
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I’ve been tempted to turn off the autocorrect setting but I think I might rely on it more than I realize, and I don’t wanna find that out the hard way, so I’m just gonna leave it alone and let it frustrate me.
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Oh me too. If I could just get into the habit of texting more slowly, then half the battle would be won. Of course, there is always reading before you hit send…which I just did haha.
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mine refuses to turn off: I’m obliged to choose a language, which is a problem because I mix my languages depending on who I’m texting. The result is hellish
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That happens to me on my phone. I have keyboards in English and Spanish, but sometimes I feel like my keyboard is stuck on idiot. I’m forever accidentally changing it mid-sentence and gobbledygook comes out. Or a bad word lol. On my kindle tablet it takes more effort to switch languages so it hasn’t been the same problem. I feel for you!
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I’ve also noticed when I write comments there’s some kind of interference when I press send – and I get the odd typo here and there… which is public and embarassing!
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Again, me too. In my case I need to slow down a little and read what I’m sending before I click the button.
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I had the same problem after click “Send” button. I simply turn it off after few accidents 😉
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I tried that once, but my own typing was worse. Actually, I’m very good at it, but type too fast. So I turned it back on. I’m not sure which is better.
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It’s not convenience for me while I need to switch between English & Vietnamese; plus auto-correct feature for Vietnamese language brought a lot of fun. Perhaps when more intelligent is built, I might try again one day.
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I once turned it off only to realise that people couldn’t really comprehend the words I was texting them. And I couldn’t even point my finger and blame autocorrect like what I usually do when I text nonsense. “I really think I’m falling for you” “WHAT?!” “Ah crap! Sorry it’s autocorrect, I meant er..I dont want to fall while texting you” :$ Hah! Take that autocorrect!
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Good point!
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