Hazards of spelling autocorrection: defiance

Raymond Chen

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.

Raymond Chen

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