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Saturday, June 15, 2019

Autocorrect--Friend or Foe?

Below is an article I found amusing and pertinent enough to share with my followers. It was written by Joe Queenan who writes the "Moving Targets" column for the Wall Street Journal. The last paragraph is my favorite.

Because I have poor vision and can’t type and often send text messages while staggering through dark alleys, my friends and family often get messages from me that make no sense. The autocorrect function either leaves obvious mistakes in place—“clowns” is not spelled “closns”—or it cavalierly substitutes what it thinks I should be texting without consulting me. As in: “I just finished reading ‘Anna Karen in a.’ It’s very avant garden.”
Think how different history might have been if famous people had depended on autocorrect when texting. If Julius Caesar in the heat of battle had typed “veni, vidi, vici” into his iPhone, the Roman Senate would have had no idea what he was trying to say when the message arrived. “What does ‘Gino Video Vicious’ mean, Flavius Maximus?” a baffled Roman politician might have asked his press secretary.“You got me,” the flummoxed factotum would reply. “His assistant just texted me, ‘Gino Visit Vick.’ Maybe it’s some kind of code.”

As is widely known, the various versions of autocorrect arbitrarily alter text, believing that they can intuit what the sender of the message wishes to say. But if you are typing in dim light or without your reading glasses or while driving or under extreme duress, or in a hammered condition, the results can be absurd. 
“Foreskinned and seven years ago…” would have certainly gotten the Gettysburg Address off to a bizarre start when Abraham Lincoln mouthed these words back in 1863. Honest Abe would have been met with equally puzzled stares had he remarked: “You can fuel all of the people some of the time.”
“I only regret that I have but one wife to lose for my country” almost certainly would not have had the effect Nathan Hale was looking for before being hanged.
Winston Churchill’s “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweaters” would have been confusing to harried Britons living through the Blitz in 1940. As would the old saying, “If you’re going through Hull, keep going.”
“A date which will live in infancy…” would have puzzled Americans the day after Dec. 7, 1941. Same thing for “The only thing we have to fear is fur itself.” Or, as the autocorrected Yogi Berra might have put it: “It ain’t oval till it’s oval.”
Had autocorrect existed even a few decades ago, it might have had a tremendous effect on many touchstone expressions from popular culture. “Lunch means never having to say you’re sorry,” would be the phrase most remembered from “Love Story.” And let us not forget Humphrey Beaugard’s immortal line, “We’ll always halve Paris,” from the autocorrected film “Cass’s Blanket.”
Autocorrect would have had a wonderful time reconfiguring song titles (“Newark State of Mind,” “Bully Jean”) and song lyrics (“My gift is my song, and this one’s for Hugh.”) And the most beloved Broadway offerings would now include “The Kink and I” and “Goys and Dills,” alongside more serious fare like “The Nice Man Cometh” and “12 Hungry Men.”
If artists were not paying close attention, autocorrect would have massacred the titles of their paintings (“Whistling Mothers,” “The Moaning Lisa”). And the function would have dramatically altered the titles of many famous books: “War and Pizza,” “Tender Is the Nightie.”
As for the immortal bard, author of “Whatcha Do About Nothing” and “Omelet,” he might have let autocorrect rename one of his least successful plays, “Trolls and Cressida,” witch is weight butter.

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