{"id":2351,"date":"2014-07-29T06:53:18","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T10:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2015-01-10T19:06:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T00:06:06","slug":"thanks-autocorrect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2351","title":{"rendered":"Thanks, Autocorrect!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though at times we pound our tiny screens screaming that autocorrect must have sprung full-grown from the forehead of Satan, this devil\u2019s spawn actually has a long history, and Gideon Lewis-Kraus recounted it recently in Wired.<\/a><\/em> The mistakes are shared, sometimes hilarious, and may eventually bring back proofreading, but maybe not.<\/p>\n

According to Lewis-Kraus, \u201cthe real marvel of our mobile text-correction systems is how astoundingly good they are.\u201d He believes they\u2019ve enabled us to text so much, we of the \u201cpodgy fingers\u201d and dimmest memories of sixth grade spelling tests. Our tiny keypads are possible \u201conly when we have some serious software to tidy up after us.\u201d Then, in a scary revelation, Lewis-Kraus admits he typed the whole first draft of his book (doesn\u2019t say which<\/a>) on a phone.<\/p>\n

\"princess\"<\/a>

(photo: c2.staticflickr.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Then man behind autocorrect is Microsoft\u2019s Dean Hachamovitch. He began his Microsoft career in the early 1990\u2019s on the Word team and wanted to make typing \u201csleek and invisible.\u201d His crew began with enabling fixes for common typing errors, which is why every time I abbreviate electronic health record EHR, Word \u201cfixes\u201d it for me. (And, yes, I\u2019ve tried to add EHR it to my personal dictionary.) And there were consequences. Hachamovitch spoke to his daughter\u2019s third-grade class and showed the youngsters how to make auto-fixes, and afterward received parental emails saying things like, \u201cThanks, but whenever I try to type my daughter\u2019s name it automatically transforms into \u2018the pretty princess.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Autocorrect\u2019s developers went with primary spellings (judgment, not judgement\u2014take that, Brits!), declined to give suggestions for correct spelling of vulgarities (ignore them), released their baby, and soon laid bare its eccentricities. Linguist now use the word cupertino<\/a><\/em> as a term of art for autocorrection with incorrect words, after older spellcheckers repeatedly replaced \u201ccooperation\u201d with the name of Apple\u2019s home town. Regrettably, my own last name (\u201cWeisfeld\u201d) more than once went out on the bottom of letters with its automatic replacement \u201cWeaseled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t abandon hope. Improvements still coming. Meanwhile, here\u2019s the Damn You Autocorrect Hall of Fame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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