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Funny you mention Swiftkey. I was recently setting up my daughter's cheap Android phone, when I decided to send a test Viber message to my wife. I started typi
by unsigner 13y ago
Funny you mention Swiftkey.
I was recently setting up my daughter's cheap Android phone, when I decided to send a test Viber message to my wife. I started typing "Hello mom", and "mom" got autocorrected to a declination of "mother" which is 99% of the time used in "f-ck your mom" phrases (мамата, for compatriots).
My daughter is old enough for a smartphone, but too young for this grade of swearing; I considered it highly inappropriate, and just one more appalling thing in this first contact with Android.
Crowd-training obviously has its limits. And you should err on the side of caution in this sort of things.
(The other appalling thing was the obviously crowd-translation of the base OS, with glaring typos permeating the interface; some were occasional, but some of the most offending ones were systemic, e.g. the word Audio was wrong everywhere. You'd think between them Google, Alcatel and a mobile network operator working in half of Europe could afford to have an editor read through a few dozen thousand strings.)
- skrebbel 13y agoWait, so the full, unshortened rendition of "mother" has essentially become a swear word in your language? (Bulgarian?) Wow :-) Language never fails to amaze me. I see your point entirely, and you're right to complain, but I doubt I would've seen that coming if I were making an autocorrecting keyboard.
- ygra 13y agoI18n is Hard ;) Apart from having a good dictionary of words to use in your desired target languages, you apparently have to keep track of actual language usage as well and sometimes even regional variations on usage. Sometimes those are then explanations for quirky behavior, e.g. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/20/55055.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/20/55055...
- unsigner 13y agoIt's the definite article-d form of a diminuitive word; roughly "the mommy" in English. It has stuck as part of a common swear phrase, and consequently fallen out of other, general use. Used by itself, it is clearly recognizable as a swear word. (Cf. "up yours")