
Words Apple doesn't want you to type - MetallicCloud
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/apple-auto-correct-blindspot-the-words-your-iphone-fails-to-recognise-20130717-2q3bv.html
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kenferry
I can repro this, but I'm amused that the article thinks it's censorship. It
seems transparently like an attempt to avoid common embarrassing autocorrects.
See [http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com](http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com)

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stinos
seriously failed attempt then, or it was never there in the first place.. If
you mistype a single letter eg _abortiom_ , then how exactly it is embarassing
to make _abortion_ out of it?

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kragen
"Rape" is probably in order to avoid the things that show up on
[http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/tag/rape/](http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/tag/rape/),
like "Lol he needs a new hose now. I duct raped it !"
([http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/32070/the-damage-may-be-
pe...](http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/32070/the-damage-may-be-permanet/)),
an error which you could easily imagine resulting in a call to the police, HR,
or someone's spouse under slightly different circumstances.

The others seem less likely to come up by accident, although apparently in
[http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/53824/shes-a-
mess/](http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/53824/shes-a-mess/) the iPhone
autoincorrected "hair" to "abortion". I have no idea how.

I'm curious whether anyone can persuade their current-version iDevice to
autocorrect "a nap" to "anal", as it's done in the past.

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SilasX
What's the worst that could happen from telling someone that you're "going to
take anal"?

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kragen
That's not too bad. But consider "My six-year-old finally got anal. I'm
exhausted."

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sveme
Just checked the German iOS, the words mentioned in the article - abortion
(Abtreibung), rape (Vergewaltigung), virginity (Jungfräulichkeit), ammo
(Munition) all work. The correct word is proposed after entering about five
letters.

Must be an Anglosaxon/American thing then, unsurprisingly. Any other data
points?

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kragen
Maybe it's harder to type a common phrase that gets autocorrected to
"Vergewaltigung" than to "rape". "Tape" seems like the most likely candidate:
"Can you tape me during my performance?" Suppose you mistype that as "fape".

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TomAnthony
They state they tested 250,000 words then say 'abortion' isn't corrected as
were 150,000 words.

So, unless they've missed something from the article - that means there were
99,999 other words that also failed this test?

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ComputerGuru
Oh please.. So much grasping at straws for a story that doesn't exist!

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yummybear
I think it makes perfect sense. Imagine if autocorrect gets it wrong (and it
often does) and puts "abortion" in the text message unintended. That could
have severe consequences.

"Honey, I think we should get the Aburtium(TM) anyways"

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likeclockwork
Can't your add words to your dictionary on iOS?

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marrs
So what part of this is censorship? The iPhone's not preventing you from
spelling those words correctly, is it?

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enraged_camel
I've always found it annoying that my iPhone autocorrects "hell" to "he'll."

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SilasX
I think that particular case has less to do with it being hell and more to do
with noticing a contraction -- it seems to use similar sentence structure
heuristics to know whether to correct "its" to "it's".

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caf
He'll know? Hell no!

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ArekDymalski
And I used to be mad at MS Clippy for trying hard to know better ...

