Wednesday 19 May 2021

Stupid Text

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who dislikes texts as the modern means of communication. Personally, I'd rather send an e-mail which I can check for every comma and full stop, (period); or make a phone call, rather than send a quick text which can be misinterpreted or have mistakes.

The problem with texts is that there's a program which I have not asked for called "predictive text" or "corrective text" or some similar title. Basically I call it unwelcome interfering text. Because what happens is that when I am texting someone in a hurry this program interferes and adds its own interpretation of what I did not want to say. 

I'm sure you know what I mean. I type something on my cell-phone and the predictive text offers other options or completes the word I started typing.

For example, some time ago at work my cell-phone bleeped and I had received a text from my boss.

She wrote: "When shall we meet?" referring to a forthcoming meeting that very day.

I replied: "We'll meet at sex." (Obviously meaning the time. But interfering text thought a better version would be fun and changed the word six to sex).

She said: "WHAT?"

To speed things up, as I was rushing from one meeting to another, and as I did not understand her "WHAT?"; I decided to use an emoji instead. Another plague in our modern communication language.

I wanted to show a clock face with the time hands at six but instead I texted: 😈

She texted back: "R U being funny?"

I did not understand what that meant either. To make matters worse, what I did not realise at the time, is that she had a reputation in the office of being a little friendly; and that apparently she had been made aware of that reputation about her. So my response to her question "when shall we meet" was a faux pas of the greatest magnitude.

Before I had time to text anything else, my cell phone rang. 

She said, "Come to my office NOW!" and hung up.

After a very long and difficult ten minutes she was convinced that I meant no harm by my misinterpreted text. 

The next day she sent a note round the office saying that for the sake of clarity all communications will be by e-mail and not by text.

26 comments:

  1. ...this is quite simple for me, I DON"T TEXT!!!

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    1. I now write on pieces of cardboard and have a messenger deliver them.

      God bless, Tom.

      Delete
  2. If I was in charge, predictive text would be the first to go.

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  3. Thank you for voicing what most of us over the age of 16 are thinking! I hate texting, but love to laugh. Thanks for this morning's chuckles!

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  4. YEP, miscommunications can surely cause trouble, we do enough verbally. My texts are always proofed AFTER I do the send thing. Then I will say to myself, "They know what I mean!" HA! ain't always so.
    Sherry & jack

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    Replies
    1. That's true, why is it we find mistakes after we've sent the text?

      God bless Jack and Sherry.

      Delete
  5. Oh, now, I like texting. Guess I'm in the minority here. :)

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    1. You must be good at typing, Happyone. No misteaks miss takes mistakes with your texts.

      God bless always.

      Delete
  6. I'd switch to email, too, after that, Victor! I do hate how the text interprets the words I type, but I don't know how to get rid of that.
    Blessings!

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    1. I don't think you can switch off predictive text. I've tried by throwing the cell-phone against the wall but it switched off texting too ... permanently.

      God bless, Martha.

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  7. I haven't texted in a long time, not a big fan of it anyway.

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    1. I agree, it's awful with lots of abbreviations.

      God bless, Bill.

      Delete
  8. I do text quite a lot but I'm always careful to read it before I send it.
    Predictive text can be a pain!

    All the best Jan

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    1. You're lucky you did not make any mistakes, Jan. I see them after I've pressed send.

      God bless.

      Delete
  9. My daughter was texting to her brother. She wrote something that clearly sounded strange to spelling correct. So whatever word came out as "masturbation". My son giggled.

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    1. How embarrassing, Susan. I'd rather the text is not corrected.

      God bless you.

      Delete
  10. I like texting as I do not like talking on the phone, however you do have to watch that interpretive thing.

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    1. Yes I agree, JoeH. It would be better if interpretive was switched off altogether.

      God bless.

      Delete
  11. HaHa...it's even worse if you are "voice" texing and send before checking...Opps I've got myself in trouble a few time.
    Fun post and so much our reality in the tech age.

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    1. Never tried "voice" texting. I could do it in different accents and see what happens.

      God bless, Wanda.

      Delete
  12. Somehow i turned off autocorrect and predictive text on my phone, and i have left them off!

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    1. Well done, I wish I could do the same.

      God bless, Mimi.

      Delete
  13. I do not like auto correct, because it usually doesn’t correct and causes a bunch of confusion. I like speaking with someone about a problem, invitation or whatever else may come up. There is much less back and forth junk, and reaching a conclusion is clearer than texting. Texting is just a glitch in modern technology. Blessings.

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    1. You are right, Nells. Auto-correct is one technology too far, perhaps.

      God bless.

      Delete

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