07.04.09
Me and my iPhone speak a different language

iPhone_pic

I have very few quibbles with the iPhone as a piece of communications kit. Its arrival into my life has ironed out many wrinkles, and life generally works a little more seamlessly, thanks to Mr Jobs, Mr Ive and that touch sensitive screen.

The only recurring problem is language. Now, I appreciate that I don’t write in a conventional way. If I want a short sentence, so be it. If ‘if’ or ‘see’ will do, do it, don’t fret. See? But it’s not syntax or sentence structure that my iPhone and I are at loggerheads over. It’s simple, boring old words.

Rightly, or wrongly, I reserve the right to talk in a strange amalgam of slang, business speak and Anglo-Saxon, because, er, well it’s my language and I’ll destroy it if I want to (or something like that). But the iPhone’s predictive typing just doesn’t ‘get’ the words that are in my head. My list of embarrassing moments is almost too long to repeat in public, but as examples only last week a crucial pdf of costings got forwarded as ‘coatings’, ‘Toby’s’ have become ‘Tony’s’, and ‘Armin’ becomes ‘Army’ or even ‘admin’. The emotional effect of writing a long howler ending with ‘til hell freezes over’ loses a bit of impact when my iPhone religiously changes it to ‘He’ll freezes over’, rendering me both cross and unintelligible (never a great combination).

Bizarrely a one word comment forwarded to a colleague about a particularly difficult client request met with ‘Fish?’ in reply. I was as confused as you until I realised that my email (that was meant to say ‘Eek!’) actually said ‘Eel!’

My northern prediliction for using ‘ta-ra’ (as in good-bye) has taken months to stop being changed to ‘take’ or even weirder, ‘tars’. Anything remotely rustic gets nixed or re-spelt, so ‘blimey’ become ‘blindly’ and ‘bollocks’ becomes ‘bollix!’ How?

Even my initials (‘MJ’) get routinely changed to ‘JK’. Rowling? The furry-hatted Stevie Wonder impersonator, Jay Kay? I have no idea.

Conversely anything vaguely Facebook-esque is converted almost immediately. ‘Lil’ becomes ‘LOL’ (and always in caps). Omg you might say? No ‘OMG!’ And of course every possible valley-girl-wayne’s-world-programmer-geek-speak you can think of works fine, so ‘dude’, ‘totally’, ‘awesome’ and even ‘schwing!!’ get through unharmed.

But the most predictable predictive of the whole thing? However badly you type it, ‘ipho’, ‘iphi’ or ‘ipon’, even ‘iPoo!’ all become ‘iPhone’ (with strategically placed capital) way before you can say blimey (sorry, blindly).

By JK. Not sent from an iPhone.

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