What the He'll: 10 Times Autocorrect Is Downright Awful & 10 Times It's Actually Useful
Autocorrect: Hero or Villain?
From making unnecessary grammar swaps ("were" to "we're) to constantly getting "On my way!" after typing "omw," there are plenty of times autocorrect makes us want to pull our hair out. Ironic, isn't it? It's almost hard to believe that this feature is supposed to make our lives easier. Even though it does have its clever moments, if you feel like autocorrect is more of a villain than a hero most of the time, you're not alone. Here are 10 times autocorrect is downright awful—and 10 times it's actually useful.
1. Grammar Swaps
Ever tried to type "were" only for it to be autocorrected to "we're" or "its" to "it's," even when you had it correct the first time around? Yup, it can get frustrating real quick when you're just trying to text a simple message. ("Were going to be there soon," anyone?)
2. Unwanted Abbreviations
Despite how many times you've deleted and re-typed, your phone still insists on expanding your abbreviations, like "omw" to "On my way!" and "fyi" to "For your information." Sure, you can technically go into your settings and customize these replacements yourself, but they still haunt you somehow.
3. Censoring
Every time you type out a swear word, your phone comes to patronize you like a school teacher or parent by immediately going, ahem, did you mean "holy shot"? Or "what the he'll"? Or "oh duck"? Maybe even "ducking cool"? You'll have to type it out several times before your keyboard lets you take the reins.
4. Butchered Names
You typed out your friend's name in all-caps one time when you were really excited, but now every time you write out their name, autocorrect immediately goes, "SUSAN." And if you're sending your texts as soon as you type them, it just sounds like you're yelling.
5. Capitalization Insistence
Sometimes, you just want to type out all your words in lowercase. But your phone is going to thwart your every attempt, no matter how many times you've tried changing it back in the sentence you just wrote. You want a lowercase "i"? Too bad. It's "I" now.
6. Words to Names
If you have friends with names that have similar spellings to common words, good luck trying to text out a normal, comprehensible message. You might just end up with "Dor" instead of "for" and "Brenda" instead of "blender."
7. Right Name, Wrong Name
Speaking of names, your phone doesn't take kindly to names being spelled unconventionally. Know someone named "Jonn"? Too bad, they're "John" now. Call a friend by a nickname? Now "Mikey" is known as "Miley."
8. Refuses to Learn
No matter how many times you type out a name a certain way with a certain spelling, autocorrect has goldfish memory and will forget how you wrote it the next time you do it again. That means you'll have to force-correct it every time you write it out, which can get super annoying really fast.
9. Ruins Slang
You might have picked up a whole slew of new slang terms and phrases to use from social media, but autocorrect isn't going to let you join the trend so easily. Whether you're typing "yeet" or "bussin'," you can almost bet autocorrect will replace your words with proper English.
10. Learns Too Well
Sometimes autocorrect refuses to learn, but sometimes, it learns too well... and not in a good way. Just like how it might randomly remember the one time you wrote your friend's name in all-caps and will automatically change the spelling to that every time you type it out, words like "hahaha" also get converted to "HAHAHA" (or "lol" to "LOLLL") even when you didn't mean to type it like that. It wasn't even that funny, but thanks, autocorrect.
And yet, despite how awful autocorrect can be most of the time, it does have its moments. Here are 10 instances when it's actually useful:
1. Common Typos
When does autocorrect actually save the day? When it helps with correcting common typos, like "yiu" to "you" and "teh" to "the." Sure, most of the time these typos can be easily decoded even without autocorrect lending a hand, but it's still a nice-to-have.
2. Spelling Mistakes
Ever wrote "separate" as "seperate," "definitely" as "definately," or "accidentally" as "accidently"? Sure, you know how they're actually spelled, but sometimes your fingers just slip; you can't always be accurate, after all. But it's okay—autocorrect's got your back in these moments.
3. Tricky Words
Sometimes, it's not that you don't know how to spell longer, trickier words like "restaurant," "mischievous," "accommodate," and "fuchsia"—it's just that you'd rather your phone do the gritty work for you. That's when autocorrect is useful.
4. Adding Punctuation
Unless you're someone who likes to live dangerously and go without punctuation, autocorrect is great when you forget to add periods and apostrophes. "Wont" and "won't" are two different words with two different meanings, after all.
5. Verb Tenses & Plurals
Autocorrect has another trick up its sleeve: it's not just scanning the word you're currently writing, but trying to interpret your sentences and paragraph as a whole. That means if you accidentally change tenses as you type, forget to pluralize a word, or make a subject-verb agreement mistake, it'll know exactly what you were trying to say and automatically replace the right word for you.
6. Decoding Homophones
If you still get confused over "their/they're/there," "your/you're," "here/hear," and other homophones in English, you're not alone—and autocorrect knows. Again, instead of only analyzing the current word you're typing, it can scan the entirety of the sentence or paragraph you've written, and make sure to swap out any mistakes for the right ones. ("Their house," not "they're house.")
7. Capitalizing Proper Nouns & Places
Autocorrect also has your back when you're typing out proper nouns and places so that they're capitalized and referred to correctly. You might not think this is a big deal, but in some cases, it can make all the difference and prevent misunderstandings.
8. Interpreting Gibberish
Ever typed out a word and it looked nothing like the word you wanted to write, but somehow, miraculously, autocorrect still knew what you meant and put the right word for you? Yup—those are the times when this feature is actually useful.
9. Fast Typers
Sometimes, you just have to get your story out in one go. Maybe you're ranting to a friend or you have a funny dream to tell, and in your excitement (or anger), your fingers aren't punching the exact letters you want to type. That's where autocorrect comes to save the day: it'll still make sure your word vomit still makes sense.
10. Doubled Letters
If you've ever accidentally typed "happpy" or "goood" with extra letters, autocorrect will make sure to trim those doubles out before you even notice they were there in the first place. And if you type out too many doubles ("happppppy"), autocorrect is usually smart enough to assume it's on purpose. Win-win.
