We’ve all had instances where autocorrect or autocomplete has made our lives more difficult. When we promised we knew how to spell that word, Microsoft was rooting against us. In high school I ran four years of Cross Country. Every summer through December Cross Country was where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with. Too bad it autocorrected every time as cross dressing. It made quite the interesting text to send your mother at 16.

While I love spell check for writing papers where I use complex language that I tend to need help with, I know how to spell the everyday slang I text. In this instance autocorrect made a quick text to my mom alerting her I was running late harder. It made me double check myself, go back and edit, or just tell my mom I was cross dressing. It wasn’t long before my phone knew let the abbreviation XC stand alone in “cross dressing’s” replacement. Our generation views texting as one talks to another in person. Those are the words and grammar that I am most comfortable with and therefore find autocorrect a hazard and annoyance. It tends to capitalize words and phrases that I don’t want to convey as capitalized. I am not that angry or excited. Text is such a tricky way of expressing emotion and self that I feel it is best done without the help of autocorrect.