I Have Something to Say
[b]The Perils of Predictive Text[/b]
I recently acquired a Fire HDX tablet, which is an excellent little device from Amazon for electronic book reading and general computer duties. It's easy to input text using a stylus but I am not yet used to predictive text, which seems to mean the system chooses the word it thinks you want by consulting its dictionary/database. Using a keyboard used to mean typos would be underlined alerting you to the fact you had made a mistake. Predictive text, however, only uses valid words from its dictionary but can choose completely the wrong word; the incorrect word is not misspelled so you are not alerted to the mistake and must rely on proofreading. I believe I catch most mistakes but I know some have slipped through like 'woods' when I wanted 'words' and 'them' when I wanted 'then'.
I have realised that predictive text can be quite dangerous in some ways! I wrote a response to a story earlier in which I included the sentence:
[i]"You clearly have a talent for writing and expressing yourself,"[/i]
and the predictive text interpreted this as:
[i]"You clearly have a talent for writing and exposing yourself."[/i]
Luckily that one did not slip through! I have now, though, made a mental note to proofread everything just in case.
I recently acquired a Fire HDX tablet, which is an excellent little device from Amazon for electronic book reading and general computer duties. It's easy to input text using a stylus but I am not yet used to predictive text, which seems to mean the system chooses the word it thinks you want by consulting its dictionary/database. Using a keyboard used to mean typos would be underlined alerting you to the fact you had made a mistake. Predictive text, however, only uses valid words from its dictionary but can choose completely the wrong word; the incorrect word is not misspelled so you are not alerted to the mistake and must rely on proofreading. I believe I catch most mistakes but I know some have slipped through like 'woods' when I wanted 'words' and 'them' when I wanted 'then'.
I have realised that predictive text can be quite dangerous in some ways! I wrote a response to a story earlier in which I included the sentence:
[i]"You clearly have a talent for writing and expressing yourself,"[/i]
and the predictive text interpreted this as:
[i]"You clearly have a talent for writing and exposing yourself."[/i]
Luckily that one did not slip through! I have now, though, made a mental note to proofread everything just in case.