Lately, I’ve been
having issues with autocorrect, especially on my phone. The first problem with
the phone is the small keyboard makes it easy to type a word incorrectly, and
when autocorrect fixes that, I’m happy. But too often autocorrect will take a
word that makes perfect sense and replace it with one that changes the entire
meaning of what I intended to say.
Autocorrect
problems aren’t limited to my phone; it can create havoc on my PC. A few days
ago, I was going to a luncheon in Warsaw and I wanted to know just exactly how
long it would take me to get there. That’s usually a simple task—just plug in
my home address and in the destination plug in Warsaw, MO. Except that autocorrect in its infinite wisdom kept changing it to Warszawa, Mazowieckie,
Poland. As if I could drive to Warszawa, Poland—AND get there in time for
lunch! Then, since the program was so helpful, it wanted me to install
something before I could actually get those driving directions.
I wasted precious travel
time trying to change the destination to Warsaw, Missouri, USA only to have it
changed to Warszawa time-after-time. After autocorrect won the battle, I kissed
my husband goodbye and said, “I’m leaving right now. I’ll use OnStar to find
the restaurant.”
“Set it before you
leave,” he said. Well, I’ve been down that road, so to speak, many times before.
I didn’t want the OnStar voice to direct me across town using weird streets, so
I waited until I was on the open road. The OnStar advisor plugged in helpful
directions, and I never had to leave the state, much less the country.
It’s not only electronic
devices that autocorrect, my brain does it too. Preoccupation results in senior
moments where I go to one of my usual destinations rather than where I’m
actually headed.
Considering how
complicated our brains are, with 100 billion nerve cells connected by 100
trillion synapses, it doesn’t take too much imagination to believe my brain
might do its own type of autocorrect, jumping the rails, so to speak. I
shouldn’t complain, though, because I believe my senior moments are simply a
slight slowing down and not the catastrophic confusion of Alzheimer’s.
Here’s how the
Alzheimer’s Association explains the difference between normal aging and
Alzheimer’s: Poor judgment and decision making can be a sign of Alzheimer’s,
but occasionally making a bad decision is a sign of normal aging. If you cannot
manage a budget, it could be Alzheimer’s, but missing one payment is a typical
sign of aging. Having difficulty conversing with others could be a sign of
Alzheimer’s, but sometimes forgetting a word is normal aging.
I believe
autocorrect should be renamed “auto-incorrect” especially when it refers to my
thinking. As far as electronics, it’s a battle of me against machine to see
which one of us is the most stubborn. It irritates me to have to click on a
checkmark to let autocorrect know that yes, I did mean to type “address” not
“espresso” as in “I need your address,” not “I need your espresso.”
Moment of truth—sometimes
I blame autocorrect when I slip a cog and actually type something I didn’t
intend to. You know, like one of those Freudian slips. Sometimes I might actually
need espresso just to stay alert. It seems to me that when I’m alert, I don’t
auto-incorrect nearly as often.
Copyright © March 2018
by L.S. Fisher
#ENDALZ
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