Interview on NPR’s Morning Edition about the perils of smartphone autocorrect. (Mar. 22, 2011)
Linguist Ben Zimmer says that the history of automatic spellcheckers goes back to Microsoft Word and other word processors, but the technology for smartphones differs from those because it tries to understand what the user means based on both the proximity of the letters to each other on that tiny little virtual keyboard and on completing a word based on what it thinks you meant.
So if you’re trying to tell a friend about a great double play by “Derek Jeter,” don’t be surprised if your phone turns that into “Derek heterosexual.” Because the phone’s dictionary might not recognize Jeter, it turns the J to a close letter on the keyboard – H — and completes the new word, “heter,” that it’s now created.
(Show page, audio download, related On Language column)