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juhl: is autocorrect revealing your true parenting style?
it's clearly outing me as a parent who is always in a hurry and whose body-positivity evangelism extends to fat fingers.
jul 5 2024
2 minute read
autocorrecting to "holly crap" and "spitballs" is a constant reminder to moderate language even when you're not speaking out loud.
anatoliyk
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getty images/istockphoto
autocorrect is my nemesis. it puts apostrophes where apostrophes have no business being and caps words i intended to leave lower case in feeble attempts to seem cool .
i once attempted to text: [shaking fist at autocorrect], but it autocorrected to “shaking fish,” which is a thing i have never done. it changes “all” to “ask” every single time. i haven’t even once meant “we should ask go to a movie.”
there was the time my wife texted, “what is your post-surgery plan?” i was alarmed. i had no idea i had any sort of surgery scheduled. how it decided “post-surgery” was a better option than “post-work” is beyond me. and even though we’re very open about body parts in our house, i swear she meant to tell me a smartphone would fit “in her bag,” not the other word, which starts with a v.
what does autocorrect know about our parenting that we don’t? it wants me to say “os” instead of “us,” which i imagine is because i spend so much time trying to figure out my kids’ operating systems. and “hegemonies” instead of “heh” because i ought to spend less time laughing at my own jokes and more time cementing my authority.
“maybe stop at a plato,” my wife once texted me. i prefer playlands to metaphysical theory, to be honest. “i got us marble bags!” she said another time. they were bagels, actually, which is unfortunate since we’re clearly a few marbles short.
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“i’m so done with this bulldhit,” i said another time. that’s not even a word, yet it’s preferable to the one i was trying to type. this — and autocorrecting to “holly crap” and “spitballs” — is a constant reminder to moderate my language even when i’m not speaking out loud.
i was dealing with some danes at the time, my phone told a friend. i had meant “sadness,” but with a last name like juhl, i deal with danes all the time and the change buoyed my spirits.
while autocorrect is constantly judging me (“lobotomy” instead of “lcbo”? really?), i try to take it in stride. it’s clearly outing me as a parent who is always in a hurry and whose body-positivity evangelism extends to fat fingers.
it’s not all bad. my digital shopping list once reminded me to get flowers at the pharmacy. it should have said “flossers,” but sometimes you go with it and let autocorrect take care of your emotional needs.
other times, it’s just ducking frustrating.
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