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.

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:

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.

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.

$\"Help$

Help is what we need in life after technology!
\u00a9 Thinkstock<\/p><\/div>\n

How I Got the Wrong Spelling and the Right Answer<\/span><\/h2>\n
The other day on a talk show about cars, the caller identified herself as a software engineer for Microsoft in charge of spell-check.<\/p>\n
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, \u201cyou have to get close.\u201d<\/p>\n
For me, one who almost won the school-wide spelling bee in sixth grade, getting close is not the problem. \u00a0It\u2019s the technology advancements that moved manual spell-check into rapid-fire Auto-Correct, or \u201cOughtta-Correct,\u201d as I call it.<\/p>\n
Somehow the technology thinks it knows what you oughtta say and takes over, changing a perfectly good word into an embarrassing moment.<\/p>\n
Technology and Life—Not Always a Good Mix<\/h4>\n
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.<\/p>\n
$\"man$
Oh no, not again!
\u00a9 Thinkstock<\/p><\/div>\n
We had been late with the delivery for four consecutive weeks, and our reserved press time was evaporating.<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
Sorry for the incontinence.<\/em><\/p>\n
Now, of course, he meant \u201cinconvenience,\u201d but Auto-Correct converted his message to use a more appropriate word. He had peed on the printer yet again.<\/p>\n
For more on such life experiences, see this recent Auto-Correct\u00a0post<\/a> on Here and Now, especially the Comment section.<\/p>\n
Love and Divorce After iPhone<\/h4>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I began to ask my oh-so-smart phone, \u201cWhat makes you think you know what I want to say?\u201d<\/p>\n
Divorce came after Oughtta-Correct guessed wrong big-time, and I was sure I oughtta apologize.<\/p>\n
$\"Text$ <\/p>\n
I apologized. Then I went to Settings to General to Keyboard, flipped ON to OFF by Auto-Correction, and\u2014ahhhh\u2014I was back to thinking for myself again.<\/p>\n
Now I Know: \u00a0Being Wrong Is More Fun than Being Right<\/h4>\n
Life went on, but something was missing in my life after technology.\u00a0I began to long for the daily chuckles I used to get from Oughtta-Correct\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n
In an Oh, I See Moment<\/strong>, I realized another of life’s secrets: more laughs in the day are worth the miscommunications. And besides, having to apologize for life\u2019s little typos are a good way to cement a friendship.<\/p>\n
That’s when I went back to Settings and gave Auto-Correct new life.<\/p>\n
I also adopted a new regimen to build up my WRS (Write-Read-Send). It\u2019s better for avoiding embarrassment, but maybe not as good as WSR (Write-Send-Read) for sharing Auto-Correct\u2019s funnies with a friend. Do U agree?<\/p>\n
Comment<\/a>\u00a0on this post below, or inspire insight with your own\u00a0OIC Moment<\/strong>\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,247],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovations-creative","category-secretstolife-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40984,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/40984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oh-i-see.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}