Predictive text

I’ve started reading Bill Bryson’s, Mother Tongue, that marvellously anecdotal and humorous look at English and a whole host of other languages. It’s getting a bit old, of course, having been written in 1990, before the age of texting. Celia just received a text message from Dominic, replied to it, and then received an answer back almost immediately. ‘How does he do that?’ she asked. I told her that Dom and Ben actually use predictive text all the time, but leave the words that the cellphone comes up instead of changing them to the word they intend. Consequently they’re virtually speaking in a foreign language or code – few other people would understand their messages to each other, which somehow manage both to communicate and be hilarious at the same time.