When Auto Correct Outsmarts Us

Robin recently texted her friend “How fat are you?” Instead of “How far are you.” One of our producers recently got the incorrectly auto corrected text from her son “I’m shaking up my fudge,” instead of “I’m picking up my cleats.” The website damnyouautocorrect.com collects these texting mishaps.

Perhaps this one should be included — it’s between our producer Karyn and her husband Ron.

Karyn says she was on a trip back from Montreal and Ron had been trying to ask how far she had come, and whether she had reached the Duty Free at the Border shop and rest stop. “Duty free at the border yet?” is what his text should have said.

And we’re hearing from listeners on Twitter.

Post your auto correct horror stories in our comments section or on our Facebook page.

YouTube: Ben Champion’s Auto Correct Song

Guest:

Lyndsey Saul, editor of damnyouautocorrect

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Claireewagner

I texted “Wanna walk the phosphates tomorrow?” to my son. How did auto-correct get this from “puppies?”
Pam

I texted my friend that I was picking up from the train ” I am out heterosexual” instead of I I am out here.. (we are both gay)
Jo

Using an editor with a medical spell check can add another level of mishaps…
Should have been “….will be collaborating about annual reviews.” , went to print as “….will be co-lactating about anal reviews.”
Dan

Some of us were getting together for a movie at the last minute and I wanted to let a friend know that Josh and Meg were coming, so I sent a text that came out as “Josh and Meg are boning.” I didn’t realize the mistake until I got a text back that said “I guess that means they aren’t going to make it?”
MadMagyar

Kids wouldn’t have these “autocorrect problems” if they could spell correctly to begin with. I can’t believe how many people nowadays don’t know the difference between “to” and “too”, just to reference the most egregious and pervasive example of grammatical/spelling errors I see online. Turn off autocorrect and read a dictionary once in a while.
- MGC
  
  Mad: The autocorrect referred to here is different than a spell-check program on a computer. The program on a cell phone will “correct” and finish words, regardless of your intention, or spelling skills. That’s why it’s so funny. Different issue completely.
- Ihearteyes
  
  Obviously you don’t have any experience with texting. Therefore, you have no business commenting on autocorrect. Autocorrect is designed to make it easier to text by guessing what letters you might be texting next, to save you the time of texting the entire word. It is not even remotely related to spell check.
- Beckist
  
  I’ve been the victim of AutoCorrect on numerous occasions and I’m neither a kid nor a person with spelling issues. Typing on a phone results in typos that Autocorrect “auto”matically turns into words that aren’t even close to what I intended.
- Claragarner
  
  oh shut up!
- Red
  
  I have a ton of experience with texting, mine does not automatically fill in a word unless I hit space or a punctuation mark. I’m on my 3rd “smart” phone, and not a one of them has done that. Perhaps that’s an apple thing to just start finishing words while you’re typing, I don’t know.
  
  Get pissy all you want people, but Mad is more right than wrong. “To” and “too”; “they’re”, “their”, and “there”; “your” and “you’re”; etc. If words sound alike, I’ve seen children and adults both not know, or care, which is the correct spelling to use. Let’s not even get started on the laziness that gets showed over and over and over with “u” and “r” and “ur” and other nonsensical “words”.
  
  Does auto correct hit me from time to time? Sure, but since I pay attention to what I am typing on my phone and what is going to the person I am texting, 99% of those auto corrects never get seen by anyone’s eyes but my own.
  
  Perhaps reading a dictionary is a bit much, but paying attention to what you’re sending sure isn’t.
  - Winnie The Blue
    
    Eh Red! Sould that not be “laziness that gets SHOWN over and over”? But well done on paying attention to what you’re sending.
    - http://twitter.com/surfric Eric Pleim
      
      Should that not be “should”, instead of “sould”. You gotta be careful not to make dumb mistakes when criticizing others’ dumb mistakes!
  - ihearteyes
    
    I would also like to add that I rarely ever send texts with these autocorrect errors, I see them before I send and correct them myself. However, I always have to tell my good friends the funny autocorrect that I almost sent in the next text I send them. So, as you see, I don’t get all bent out of shape over things like you two weirdos do, I just get a good laugh and move on. By the way, you can congratulate ME on posting and error-free post!!! LOL
    - Spelling Police
      
      “and error-free post”? Hmm, guess again! ;)
J Frog

Got this one a while back from eye doctor’s office when confirming my checkup appointment. I hope she meant “correct”.
Jason George

There’s an awesome website for this… damyouautocorrect.com
xiaoxin471

tinyurl.com/cyk9xz2
Anna

You KNOW… autocorrect can only use odder words like “bootee” and “slutty” and “co-lactating” if you’ve typed them before! In fact, it won’t autocorrect to words like “anal” unless they are high on your usage list… so when people show what was autocorrected, they are also showing what they are teaching their phone to say!
- Karyn
  
  Not so! We had this problem on brand new Android phones which were programmed with these words. That was the case with the post above. The phone was only days old, and this was one of its first texts. —Karyn, Here and Now producer.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=541510320 Ian Foote
    
    New phone, existing account… nice try!
Ecervone1

The worst was recent; Though it wasn’t an auto correct (which can be horrible too). A friend was texting me about something she was excited about doing and, I replied with Fu but I wanted to say FUN. .. sometimes the send button it sends because maybe you hit it accidentally. So, I freaked out and replied back with, I .. and the send button went off again. I was still freaking because I still couldn’t manage to send FUN; but she caught on and send, technical difficulties? I was like, OMG! and, finally got to say I meant FUN! ..UGH!
Guest

My friends were waiting for me at a restaraunt one night…somehow my response was “Okay, soon. Under my landlord.” ???? Landlord has become the deliberate word of choice now when we’re goofing around. LANDLORD!
MandaPanda

I was texting my husband and was trying to type “I love you, sweet heart”. Auto correct changed it to “I love you, sweat fart”.
Jean

Not a text but still causes my face to turn red when I think about it – did a report for the governor of my state some years ago and autocorrect changed all the occurences of “gentlemen” to “genital man”! Email response from the governor’s office was “Who is genital man and what kind of costume does he wear?” Ugh…..
Steven Vohl

Sending “You’re welcome” to my wife, it came out as “Your rectum”.
Ihearteyes

My niece and I laugh when our iphones autocorrect “Awwwwwwww” to “sewers,” “dork” to “fork,” and “that sucks” to “thickset!”
Susan

My sister had an ongoing text with a friend of hers who was battling breast cancer. My sister’s concluding text to her was received as “beef stroganoff” instead of the intended “be strong”.
My sister and her friend now wear matching bracelets inscribed with “beef stroganoff”.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=153102711 Audra Lowery

The day I got my tablet it did some pretty nasty correcting. Why does it assume you cant to cuss every other word when it’s new? It’s getting much better now.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Baker/679510827 Jeff Baker

All this reminds me of the old “Saturday Night Live” character Gilda Radner used to do. Remember Emily Litella? She used to rant about “violins on television” or “endangerd fecees.” I imagine regarding this story she’d say “What’s all this I hear about text massaging?”
mellonmarshall

this is a cool bit
i think the best I hear are some of more early one like
Your brother is adopted rather then accepted for college and
Me and Mum are getting devoriced rather then Disneyland
Thinkin5

I think the damnyouautocorrect website is great when I need a good laugh. But, it’s not the autocorrect that is the problem, it’s the SEND button! People need to pause and see what they’ve typed.
cellio

Was asked what I wanted for dinner. The auto correct reply: I don’t mind, I’m not furry.
Wl_fu

I named my second daughter Nadia. I think I should have consulted my phone’s autocorrect (hint, hint to all future parents) after all the other extensive research I had done. My phone has corrected her name to Mafia so many times. Ugh!