# So which morons came up with predictive text? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 29, 2007, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401 "2007-08-29T19:27:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/21 "2007-08-29T21:00:04Z")
And another thing (missed the edit window). Who decided how many key presses it would allow before stopping further entry and making you spell out a word? Why is **numbstllslboi** fine, but one more keypress too much? Why will it let me type in **olptlmutuligllabodechsstuicssiss** but not one letter more? And yet it won’t let me get as far as **megy**? It just gets weirder. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/22 "2007-08-29T21:12:46Z")
You are all very patient to bother even trying to make sense of it! Just about the first thing I wanted to do with mine was to wok out how to ditch the predictive text, and my life is easier. Possibly less amusing, though. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/23 "2007-08-29T21:28:54Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] And how about (GHI) (PQRS) (ABC) (MNO). [/QUOTE] I predict they were greeting a Jamaican friend, then telling them about the upcoming ABC special on Ancient Rome. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/24 "2007-08-29T22:02:15Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] And another thing (missed the edit window). Who decided how many key presses it would allow before stopping further entry and making you spell out a word? Why is **numbstllslboi** fine, but one more keypress too much? [/QUOTE] I’ve got to say you’ve found a weak point here. Mine gives up after ‘numb’. Not impressive. [QUOTE=Colophon] \*OK, I just checked: “MADE IN FINLAND”. Colour me surprised. [/QUOTE] Booo hiss. Mine was properly assembled in the proper way in a Chinese sweatshop (or something). The battery impressively says ‘made in Korea, finished in China’, which I presume means ‘we stuck the label on’. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/25 "2007-08-29T22:40:21Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] If you have more than one glass of beer you could get the **pious** in. Another one: my girlfriend’s name is Jo. Surely the first choice for that combination should not be “Km”? How many English words start “jo” compared with “km”? Madness. Edit: and do you know, despite this bugging me for years, I have _only just this minute realised_ why “km” is there. Duh! [/QUOTE] My guess would be that “km” for kilometer would be common enough to warrant its having priority. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/26 "2007-08-29T22:55:18Z")
[QUOTE=Zoggie] I have predictive text, but it’s only based on stuff that I’ve written in the past. So if I start writing “sec…” it’ll fill that in as “second.” If I start writing “next” it’ll add “wknd.” It actually works pretty well. [/QUOTE] I have the same thing…and it always wants to change ‘but’ or ‘butt’ to ‘buttsex’… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/27 "2007-08-30T01:47:20Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] Are you sure you have predictive mode switched on? Even my phone comes up with “I” for that one, unless of course it’s in non-predictive mode in which case you have to press “4” three times to get an “I”. [/QUOTE] Quite sure. My guess is that I accidentally added “G” to my dictionary at some point, cause I swear it didn’t always do that. And if it’s possible to delete words from my dictionary, I don’t know how to do it yet. ---
**Author:** ![Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/57b2e6/32.png) [@Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/28 "2007-08-30T04:18:11Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Am I being whooshed and is the joke that it’s an American English prediction? [/QUOTE] My thoughts exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/29 "2007-08-30T04:29:06Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] I have the same thing…and it always wants to change ‘but’ or ‘butt’ to ‘buttsex’… :smack: [/QUOTE] Ha! Mine won’t allow any dirty words whatsoever - I have to do the punch-the-keys-a-billion-times thing. And, as for the OP, really I think your problem is that you speak the wrong kind of English. Americans, who invent useful things like cellular phones instead of tea spoons, don’t say “mum” unless we’re talking about flowers. We don’t go out for a pint, although we might indeed have a shot or two. And most of us don’t have “grans”. I’m sure “mom”, “beer”, and “grandma” (although we all call our grandmothers something different, I think) would come up just fine. Neener, neener, neener. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/30 "2007-08-30T10:36:54Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Ha! Mine won’t allow any dirty words whatsoever - I have to do the punch-the-keys-a-billion-times thing. [/quote] Annoying as **dual** , isn’t it. > [@](#): > > And, as for the OP, really I think your problem is that you speak the wrong kind of English. Americans, who invent useful things like cellular phones instead of tea spoons, don’t say “mum” unless we’re talking about flowers… Um, I’m pretty sure that the cellphones we know and love were primarily developed in Europe, mostly by those crafty Scandinavians. Although Googling reveals that T9, the most common predictive text system, was developed by Tegic Communcations, a Seattle based company. Strange, then, that **frappe** is not in the dictionary. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/31 "2007-08-30T10:43:43Z")
Predictive text is book and pleases of. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/32 "2007-08-30T10:56:45Z")
My phone ain’t English and it did the same thing, until I finally figured out how to switch that off. It must have been some sort of Magnificent Service Improvement from Telefónica: when I bought it it was normal, then one day it started insisting that I choose from lists of words. I didn’t have the option to write - just choose from the very-limited list. It took about one hour of investigating the menus to find out where the hell that option was and switch it off. My brother says it’s a good thing everybody in his company has the same model (or very close ones at least): one of the technical architects figured hers out and did everybody’s. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/33 "2007-08-30T12:00:00Z")
I am honestly shocked to find out that people actually use predictive text. Like **Celyn** , I turned mine off as soon as I got my phone. It is very possibly the least useful “tool” ever invented. Well, that and the way MS Word always wants me to make lists THEIR way instead of MY way. Fuckers, if I wanted to indent nesting lists, I’d do it my own fucking self! Fucking Word. ---
**Author:** ![Arch\_Trout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9f8e36/32.png) [@Arch\_Trout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arch_Trout)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/34 "2007-08-30T12:21:38Z")
[QUOTE=Kyla] I am honestly shocked to find out that people actually use predictive text. Like **Celyn** , I turned mine off as soon as I got my phone. It is very possibly the least useful “tool” ever invented. [/QUOTE] How can something that saves you time not be beneficial? As an example I typed in “How many key presses” using predictive text and it took me 19 key presses. The same words without predictive text took 43 key presses. I know which one I prefer. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2007, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401/35 "2007-08-30T12:39:38Z")
[QUOTE=Kyla] Fucking Word. [/QUOTE] Tools - AutoCorrect Options - AutoFormat As You Type - Automatic Bulleted Lists [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-which-morons-came-up-with-predictive-text/417401.md?page=1)