Sep

Life After Technology: To Correct or Auto-Correct?

by Sheron Long on September 20, 2012

Help key, symbolizing challenges of life after technology, especially with the auto-correct feature

Help is what we need in life after technology!
© Thinkstock

How I Got the Wrong Spelling and the Right Answer

The other day on a talk show about cars, the caller identified herself as a software engineer for Microsoft in charge of spell-check.

The car conversation made a sudden U-turn into how technology affects our lives, specifically the perils of spell-check. Finally, the software engineer wriggled her way out of a tight spot and shared one of life’s secrets: for spell-check to work, “you have to get close.”

For me, one who almost won the school-wide spelling bee in sixth grade, getting close is not the problem. It’s the technology advancements that moved manual spell-check into rapid-fire Auto-Correct, or “Oughtta-Correct,” as I call it.

Somehow the technology thinks it knows what you oughtta say and takes over, changing a perfectly good word into an embarrassing moment.

Technology and Life—Not Always a Good Mix

Take for example, a colleague of mine who was in charge of manufacturing books for a publishing company. He worked against one deadline after another, and printers (who are generally not an understanding lot) were pressuring hard for the final files.

man embarrassed by an auto-correct error and dubious about technology advancements

Oh no, not again!
© Thinkstock

We had been late with the delivery for four consecutive weeks, and our reserved press time was evaporating.

After one last promise to deliver failed, my colleague wrote a lovely letter of apology with a new file-to-printer date. Right above his signature lurked the words:

Sorry for the incontinence.

Now, of course, he meant “inconvenience,” but Auto-Correct converted his message to use a more appropriate word. He had peed on the printer yet again.

For more on such life experiences, see this recent Auto-Correct post on Here and Now, especially the Comment section.

Love and Divorce After iPhone

I still remember when I got my first iPhone, I was sure that my life after technology would be rosy. And I did really love my iPhone, but I fell in and out of love with Oughtta-Correct.

If the suggested word was right, I was grateful. It saved me time typing on that flat keyboard. But when it was wrong, I kept forgetting to hit the little x, and the word popped in. Then I ended up spending even more time deleting the wrong word and starting over.

I began to ask my oh-so-smart phone, “What makes you think you know what I want to say?”

Divorce came after Oughtta-Correct guessed wrong big-time, and I was sure I oughtta apologize.

I apologized. Then I went to Settings to General to Keyboard, flipped ON to OFF by Auto-Correction, and—ahhhh—I was back to thinking for myself again.

Now I Know: Being Wrong Is More Fun than Being Right

Life went on, but something was missing in my life after technology. I began to long for the daily chuckles I used to get from Oughtta-Correct’s brain.

In an Oh, I See Moment, I realized another of life’s secrets: more laughs in the day are worth the miscommunications. And besides, having to apologize for life’s little typos are a good way to cement a friendship.

That’s when I went back to Settings and gave Auto-Correct new life.

I also adopted a new regimen to build up my WRS (Write-Read-Send). It’s better for avoiding embarrassment, but maybe not as good as WSR (Write-Send-Read) for sharing Auto-Correct’s funnies with a friend. Do U agree?

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Sheron Long 1 Comment

Innovations/Secrets to Life

Comments:

One thought on “Life After Technology: To Correct or Auto-Correct?”

Van on September 25, 2012 at 9:26 pm said:

I recently moved to Austin, and my roommates are fluent in Spanish! I find it funny that with my background in French, some words are very similar and others are so different! In example- gato in Spanish means cat and gateau in French means cake!

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