Ideas & Opinions
Shot, riot or pint?
By JBC on 25 September 2009
A pint, yesterday.
LONDON, England – In a couple of hours, busy workers across Great Britain will indulge in the weekly institution that is the Friday lunchtime pint. Frowned upon in some countries, it’s almost (and I stress the almost) actively encouraged in the UK. As such, without any statistical analysis of any kind, I can safely assume that thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of people will today be invited to a riot at lunchtime.
Far from worrying, it is simply a combination of those busy workers’ haste and predictive text that poses such a threat. See, predictive text for pint throws up shot and riot first, so the texter needs to scroll through to get to the word he actually wants.
Given that, in the UK (and Ireland) at least, pint is a lot more popular than riots or shots you’d think something could be done about this. I’m not sure how, but it’d be nice to just have the word pint show up first, and then the option of inciting people to riot, or inviting them for a shot following on later at the texter’s choosing.
For some countries it just doesn’t matter, mostly because of the metric system, and sometimes because of language. However, in Albanian, Pint means drink, so there are some similarities and in Catalan (according to Google translate) pint means PINT which I take it to mean much the same, but more important. Of course, being an international unit of measure, the word pint means the same thing in many countries, even if it might not be as popular in use elsewhere as it is in the UK.
So, I’d like to see the word pint appear as first choice in predictive text, not third. Who’s with me?
If you have any other unusual examples of predictive text nuances, share them with the group below.
Oh, and happy birthday to Arthur Guinness for yesterday. Not bad for 250 years, eh. Honorary snap comes courtesy of Gorriti. Cheers.
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Tags | Guinness, Pint, Predictive text
September 25th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Most phones nowadays (and for the last five years +) learn which words you use the most. For example when I type pint on my N97 I get pint because i’ve selected it more often than shot or riot.
Obviously on a brand new phone you would see shot or riot first until it knows that you use pint more.
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September 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Fun anyone? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hcoT6yxFoU
Predictive Text esp T9 has probably the most satarical combinations for words, let alone swear words.
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September 25th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Well I usually end my messages with “kisses” which is quite similar to “fleas” in Romanian (pupici/purici). The predictive dictionary throws first the fleas, so I often end up in signing my messages with stuff like “hugs and fleas” or “lots of fleas”.
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September 28th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I couldn’t imagine the Finns going out for beers at lunchtime, it’d never happen.
They’d be like, “Are you crazy?! Beers at lunch!? Let’s instead go out afterwork and get wasted and puke all over ourselves…THAT’S just fine.”
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September 28th, 2009 at 9:58 am
if you want predictive text that actually learns from what you type, then use Adaptxt (a blogging buggy reviewed it here: http://predictivetext.blogspot.com/2009/06/adaptxt-for-nokia-s60-smartphone-beta.html)
It learns from sms and email in your inbox too…though if someone invites you to a riot…..you’ll be txting about that too :0
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