Texting has brought a number of interesting dynamics to our culture but one that intrigues me revolves around spelling and predictive text. While Microsoft Word and spellcheck have eroded the efforts of hard working elementary school teachers everywhere, predictive texting could bring it back. You have to blindly commit to a spelling and hope that by the end, you’ve landed on the word you intended. It gets more exciting the longer the word. One letter off and you phone suddenly reverts to Russian. Backtracking’s a lost cause too. Either start over and try again or admit that you’re not smarter than a 5th grader and switch to the tap-tap-tap input with your tail between your legs.
When the tables are turned and your friend’s quality control department slips up, you get to play a whole new game of deciphering their code. The advent of QWERTY Blackberry Pearl predictive phones throws in a whole new twist too.
Finally, why can’t my predictive phone figure out that I use ‘fuck’ more often than ‘duck’ and ‘bitch’ more than ‘butch’. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve text someone to ‘sick a duck butch.’ Really softens the edge.
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