Photo by Felipe Borges on Pexels
For duck’s sake, it’s about time that Apple got rid of the autocorrect feature that replaced “fucking” with “ducking” on your iPhone. I mean, did anyone ever on the face of this planet ever mean to type the following: Get the duck outta here? Maybe, if they were trying to shoo some wayward ducks out of their yard, maybe.
Many other news organizations have written about the facts of this finally happening, all with very clever ducking puns in their headlines (I admit to not being immune to the pun temptation myself). But I really just wanted to write about how aggressive autocorrect has become and why I think this is a wonderful update. I’ve tweeted about it in the past, but it’s been happening with increasing frequency lately. As I write and as I copyedit, those red and blue squiggly lines force their way into my efforts every time I open up a Word or Google document and even when I try to type up a simple email.
One of the most egregious examples I’ve found was when I was working on an academic book. The term in use was “matrilineality.” Autocorrect in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs splashed my page with that dreaded red squiggly line and had the temerity to suggest that I change the term matrilineality to patrilineality. I mean, the nerve!
Image source: Merlina McGovern, screenshot
Even more recently, I was writing a blog post about having a cabinet full of mismatched Tupperware. I had written the phrase: (where did all my lids go?).
Here, the even more insidious grammar suggestion presented itself with a more subtle blue squiggly line:
Image source: Merlina McGovern, screenshot
No, autocorrect, I was not worrying about where all my kids went. And, for duck’s sake, stop interrupting me when I’m telling a perfectly good story about missing Tupperware lids.
Everyone keeps shouting about how AI is going to steal all of our jobs. All I want AI to do is to leave me be. Let me write in peace, and stop telling me what I should be writing instead. Maybe, instead of telling me that what I really want to write is “are well” after I start typing “I hope you” in my email to my archnemesis, AI can shut the duck up and let me finish my sentence (“I hope you step on every single Lego in existence and always sleep on the hot side of the pillow”).
Do you have any autocorrect stories gone wrong? Share them in the comments below.
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