War of Words with a Smartphone

My smartphone has a sense of humor.This is what my husband saw one morning this week when I messaged him about a Great Horned owl in our back yard.

I know I typed in “staredown,” not shakedown. Obviously, my phone thinks it’s smarter than I am.

Okay, sometimes it’s right. Night is not spelled “nkght.” But why would anyone think staredown is supposed to read shakedown?

Last weekend the phone played another trick on me. The kids often tease their dad and me about our preference for quiet, relaxing evenings at home. So when we went out last Saturday night, I had to let them know. Never mind that we were grocery shopping. My daughter admonished us not to get too crazy, and I asked if squeezing the buns was too risque’. Except my smartphone changed it to squeezing the nuns. Hubby will probably be kicked out of the children’s ministry at church when that gets out.

Another time, I text messaged my son (who was upstairs in his room) about whether he wanted to go out for supper. I frequently text him because he can’t hear me anyway when his ears are plugged with music, but he always knows when his cell phone is calling him. So he responded to my message, asking if we could wait a few minutes. I replied, “No hurry.” Fortunately, I thought to check before hitting the send button because my phone thought it should read, “On guppy.” My son might have thought we’d gotten a new pet. Either that or we were taking an unusual form of transportation to the restaurant.

Aw, well. I kind of enjoy the phone’s sense of humor. I giggled about the shakedown all day. And if you’d like to see the big fella I was shaking–uh–staring down, here he is.

I’d love to hear funny stories of how your phone “corrected” what you tried to say. Leave a comment and tell me about it.