I suppose if you asked the people who invented it, they would try to tell you that the auto-correct feature on cell phones is meant to do two things, 1) to help you to spell words correctly and 2) to save you time by automatically finishing the word you are typing into your text message.
Well, here’s a bit of news for any of them who may read this – it fails miserably on both counts!
Spelling correctly a word you are not trying to type is as useless as replacing the word you want to use with another that is completely unconnected with what you are trying to say.
I spend more time re-entering words into my phone that would send ten messages if they left me alone.
Yes, autocorrect is definitely the bean of my life!
Now for the funny bits….
(Usual health and safety warning applies if you are of a nervous disposition or likely to be offended by strong or graphic language. Proceed at your own risk!)
As time moves on – and it’s moving on far too fast – more and more things tend to irritate me.
The stupidity and bureaucracy we have to endure is the thing that inspired this blog in the first place and that remains a huge thorn in my side. I have made many comments on that subject and given the opportunity will no doubt make many more.
But another thing that pisses me off more and more is almost the opposite of stupidity – it is people trying to be too damn smart.
Nowhere is this more noticeable than in the technology that we use today.
Now, I’m not a technophobe by any stretch of the imagination. I love my computers and the advent of the internet was one of the greatest things ever, as far as I was concerned. Indeed I have blogged in the past about my long love affair with computers click here to read it.
Maybe it’s because of that long love affair, because I have been involved with computers for so many years, that what is happening now irritates me so much.
What I’m talking about is the fact that today’s personal computers and tablets and telephones and all the other periphery of techo gadgets try to do far too much for their owners. Everyone who has one of these machines is apparently a moron, or at least that’s how the manufacturers seem to treat us.
In the good old days you actually had to work at making your computer do things. Your telephone in those days made telephone calls and that was about it. And tablets were the things the doctor prescribed when you were feeling poorly.
To cut what could well turn into a very long list of current irritations into a manageable size, let me concentrate on just a few of the most horrible things that we now have to face.
In fact, rather than go on and on I’ll split this post over a few days.
Today it’s telephones.
Like I just said, I remember the days when phones were used to make phone calls – seemed logical enough to us at the time. Now they do all sorts of things. You can still phone people when you figure out how, but now you can also text, surf the internet, send and receive video messages and calls, play games, buy stuff – in fact almost everything you can do on your computer you can now do on a smart phone. And most of them have reasonable quality cameras too.
For a while those who could afford a cell phone were lumbered with a thing the size of a brick and it weighed almost as much too!
You can see one of those in the photo below (far left!). You can still get them, or rather a modern version if you want to draw a bit of attention to yourself – and there are always people who do.
As the years went on the phones kept getting smaller and smaller. That was good for a while. They became light and pocket sized. But miniaturization became the trend, and cell phones got really really really small to the extent that unless you had the fingers of a five year old child instead of chubby man paws it was a struggle to find the right numbers to make a call and a nightmare to send a text.
Then, mainly because of the advance of wifi and 3G and 4G and so forth, cell phones started to get bigger again to the extent that they are nearly back to the size of that brick again, albeit a lot thinner and lighter. Glasses are the next step, with a heads up view just like on the helmet visors of those jet fighters you see in the movies. And sometime in the not too distant future you will just need a silicone chip embedded at the back of your ear-hole. Not sure I’ll go for that last one though.
That’s a potted history of the cell phone, but now for the really irritating part.
When texting really took off and became the most popular form of communication when using a cell phone, someone – they won’t tell me his name probably for his own safety – decided that we needed help writing a text. Not what I call a “speel chekkar” that is available on your computer – which would have been acceptable – but a much more sinister and annoying invention.
Guessed what it is yet?
Yes, it’s “auto-correct” or as it likes to call itself “anal cortex”.
I hate this thing with a passion. I disconnect it on every device I can because it doesn’t work!
Auto-correct has not the slightest idea what you are trying to say. It is unnecessary, frustrating, irritating and useless.
It has only one saving grace that I have found.
Sometimes it’s funny.
If you are not likely to be offended by strong language, have a look at some of the examples below and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
Once a pun a time there was a blog that championed that element of humor called word play. You are about to read the latest batch of these puns right now.
So all that remains to be said is, enjoy!
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I walked into the boss’s office and handed him a pear.
“What’s this for?” He asked.
“A pay rise.” I replied.
“My wife told me to grow it first and then ask you.”
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The other day a friend of mine hit me with a chocolate bar.
How dairy!
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HMV to close sixty stores.
Is this the Vinyl Countdown?
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I won £10,000 on a scratchcard last week and the wife said
we should draw up a list of what to spend it on.
“Well, I’m going to book a holiday for one.”
“Oh goody” she screamed excitedly, “I can’t wait!”
Can’t help thinking she’s misunderstood what I said.
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I was reading through the ingredients for
a fruit salad I’m making today and it said:
“Pineapples: five cubed.”
I’m not sure though,
125 will probably be too many.
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My friend has no hands.
I feel for him.
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When I was young, my mum always used to hit me with the telephone.
I was always on the receiving end…..
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My calculator is missing the minus button,
but on the plus side, it still works.
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A gay guy asked me if I liked to blow people.
I told him I’m not a fan.
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I just hired a really uncomfortable car.
It Hertz like hell.
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I said to my friend, “I just watched that film about the Nazis.”
He said, “Oh what, the one with Adolf in?”
I said, “No mate, you’re thinking of ‘Flipper’, this was just about the Nazis.”
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I went house hunting at the weekend.
I went to see one house that had mirrors all over the walls.
I thought, “I can see myself living here.”
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I told my Chinese friend that I bought very cheap cigarettes
that were shipped in from a foreign country.
He said, “Is that Regal?”
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Why shouldn’t you buy Ukrainian underpants?
Because Chernobyl fallout.
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I was walking into my local pub,
when I suddenly realized it was darts night.
So I did a 180 and left.
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Our Brazilian housekeeper is rubbish at making the beds.
She’s very tidy downstairs though.
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There was an unbelievably close finish
in this years “Shemale of the year” contest.
It was a Thai.
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Everyone can put on their curriculum vitae
that they know a little Latin.
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I’ve got a fear of two-letter words.
I get scared just thinking about it.
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I turned to my wife last night and said,
“I’m into anal”.
She gave me a look of despair and glared at me as she said,
“Animal”.
I love it when we do the cryptic crossword together.
fasab 