May 29th, 2012

Hazards of spelling autocorrection: defiance

On an internal mailing list, a colleague asked for some recommendations on a webcam.

I was wondering if there are any models I should avoid or defiantly get.

I got this mental image of my colleague giving the salesperson the finger as he handed over his credit card. My colleague explained, “That’s an error I frequently make because Outlook by default autocorrects ‘definatly’ to ‘defiantly’ instead of ‘definitely’. You should see the reaction from my manager when he asks me to do something and I write back, ‘I’ll defiantly do that.’ I’m a terrible speller. That’s why I went into math: Only single letters.”

But the kicker was the end of his original message.

We’ll be using Windows Live Massager.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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