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points by scratcheee 10 hours ago | 0 comments
An even more generous interpretation (not saying this is the case and a complete excuse, but might explain some of the choices) is that there are some phrases people do not want to type by accident.

“Male chauvinist pig” is something many would be very upset to send to their boss by accident. So it’s perhaps understandable some such phrases are not excluded from the guesswork.

[–] ryandrake 9 hours ago
What I don't understand is how you can type something that is close enough to “Male chauvinist pig” that an uncensored autocorrect will guess it, without intending to type “Male chauvinist pig”. That phrase and others like it, even if one or two letters are wrong or swiped through incorrectly, is unambiguous.
[–] kragen 8 hours ago
Even on a single-word basis, "male" might be make, makes, Maria, Maia, narrow, Maddow, marrow, Mariya, Marita, mafia, males, mallow, Maslow, male's, or masks. "Chauvinist" might be coatings, costing, coaxing, coasting, crating, contingency, contingent, contingencies, chauvinistic, Chauvin, or chaining. "Pig" might be PC, PIC, PCC, pox, poof, PVC, pH, put, pug, PV, Pooh, log, or pub. These are all possibilities that were actually presented when I tried to swipe these words on my Android phone, twice each. Taking into account additional context will broaden this set of possibly confusable words, not narrow it.

We might not talk about a "narrow contingency put" or "Maria crating PVC" very often, but an uncensored autocorrect would almost certainly correct those phrases to the far more common "male chauvinist pig" in the rare cases where someone did try to swipe them.

[–] Arnt 8 hours ago
You can.

Step 1: a word of 4-6 letters that's somewhat close to "male". Say "name" or "masked". Look at the key positions, you'll see what I mean.

Step 2: a word that's even less close to chauvinist, and that makes sense after the word you intended, but no sense after "male", so the guesser picks "chauvinist", based on its incorrect first guess and your second swipe.

Step 3: ditto.

[–] Nevermark 5 hours ago
"Male chauvinist" and "Male chauvinist pig" are related in meaning but not equivalent.

The difference matters enough that preemptively suggesting "pig" is not a desirable "service" for most people.

[–] hnlmorg 6 hours ago
One of my friends is famously bad at texting. She’s even posted antisemitic stuff by accident. This is on Android.

I know these are all typos because she’s a really close friend and easily the last person who would be offensive to other people.

So yes, you’d be surprised at what people can typo on a phone.