6 ms·

It didn't, but the advent of spellcheck and autocorrect has made everyone completely give up on proper grammar or word selection as long as no squiggly line app

It didn't, but the advent of spellcheck and autocorrect has made everyone completely give up on proper grammar or word selection as long as no squiggly line appears.

latexr 5mo ago
Maybe that’s part of it, but I’ve also noticed autocorrect on my devices often correcting incorrectly. As in, I type the word correctly and it decides “oh, surely you meant this other similarly spelled word” and changes it. Sometimes I don’t notice until after sending the message.
- abustamam 5mo ago
  I use MS SwiftKey on my android phone and it will often autocorrect my correctly spelled, correctly used, words, to words that probably don't exist in any language (recently it corrected "blow" to "blpw"). I have French installed on my keyboard as well so sometimes it will randomly correct English words to French words (inconsistently, but at least they're words), but blpw is not a word in either of those languages. Unfortunately, I think me typing blpw three times has officially added it to my dictionary :)
  - lloeki 5mo ago
    Don't worry it's no better on iOS, where I too have a English+French QWERTY setup, and where it too frequently decides to "helpfully" correct using an English dictionary several words into a unambiguously French sentence; or the other way around depending on wind direction and age of the captain. Even more damning is that there seems to be three independent layers to the feature ("three suggestions" area above keyboard, autocorrect-as-you-type, correction popup as you touch a word) and neither agree with each other about which language it should be using.
  - skirmish 5mo ago
    Now LLMs have seen "blpw" several times and will start using it in their responses to their users. Next: Oxford dictionary word of the year 2026: "blpw".
- mitthrowaway2 5mo ago
  [dead]
Zambyte 5mo ago
That defiantly has something to do with it
- djeastm 5mo ago
  You need to spend more time in the libarry.
  - Zambyte 5mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47833557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47833557
ratg13 5mo ago
Could also be non-native speakers .. Even as a former grammar nazi, now that English isn't my daily driver language I find myself making basic mistakes .. (two, too, to / its, it's / etc.)
abustamam 5mo ago
Having grown up around immigrants and other folks who learned English as a second language, I always attributed "loose" for being a signal that perhaps English isn't the writer's first language. I think what you say is partly true too, but it's not a new phenomenon. Some examples - awful used to mean "awe-inspiring" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/awful https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/awful - you used to be the plural/formal second person pronoun with thou being the informal form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You - prior to the printing press English didn't have any standardized spelling at all https://www.dictionary.com/articles/printing-press-frozen-spelling https://www.dictionary.com/articles/printing-press-frozen-sp... Language evolves. The English we learned in grammar school is likely not going to be the same English our kids or grandkids learn. At the end of the day, written communication has a single purpose — to communicate. If I can understand what the author is trying to say, then the author achieved their goal. That being said, I wish my mom did use spell check or autocorrect because her messages often require a degree in linguistics to decipher, but because of typos, not spelling. Maybe she'll influence the next evolution in typed communication :) Edit - formatting

It didn't, but the advent of spellcheck and autocorrect has made everyone completely give up on proper grammar or word selection as long as no squiggly line appears.

latexr 5mo ago

Maybe that’s part of it, but I’ve also noticed autocorrect on my devices often correcting incorrectly. As in, I type the word correctly and it decides “oh, surely you meant this other similarly spelled word” and changes it. Sometimes I don’t notice until after sending the message.

abustamam 5mo ago
I use MS SwiftKey on my android phone and it will often autocorrect my correctly spelled, correctly used, words, to words that probably don't exist in any language (recently it corrected "blow" to "blpw"). I have French installed on my keyboard as well so sometimes it will randomly correct English words to French words (inconsistently, but at least they're words), but blpw is not a word in either of those languages. Unfortunately, I think me typing blpw three times has officially added it to my dictionary :)
- lloeki 5mo ago
  Don't worry it's no better on iOS, where I too have a English+French QWERTY setup, and where it too frequently decides to "helpfully" correct using an English dictionary several words into a unambiguously French sentence; or the other way around depending on wind direction and age of the captain. Even more damning is that there seems to be three independent layers to the feature ("three suggestions" area above keyboard, autocorrect-as-you-type, correction popup as you touch a word) and neither agree with each other about which language it should be using.
- skirmish 5mo ago
  Now LLMs have seen "blpw" several times and will start using it in their responses to their users. Next: Oxford dictionary word of the year 2026: "blpw".
mitthrowaway2 5mo ago
[dead]

Zambyte 5mo ago

That defiantly has something to do with it

djeastm 5mo ago
You need to spend more time in the libarry.
- Zambyte 5mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47833557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47833557

ratg13 5mo ago

Could also be non-native speakers .. Even as a former grammar nazi, now that English isn't my daily driver language I find myself making basic mistakes .. (two, too, to / its, it's / etc.)

abustamam 5mo ago

Having grown up around immigrants and other folks who learned English as a second language, I always attributed "loose" for being a signal that perhaps English isn't the writer's first language. I think what you say is partly true too, but it's not a new phenomenon. Some examples - awful used to mean "awe-inspiring" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/awful https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/awful - you used to be the plural/formal second person pronoun with thou being the informal form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You - prior to the printing press English didn't have any standardized spelling at all https://www.dictionary.com/articles/printing-press-frozen-spelling https://www.dictionary.com/articles/printing-press-frozen-sp... Language evolves. The English we learned in grammar school is likely not going to be the same English our kids or grandkids learn. At the end of the day, written communication has a single purpose — to communicate. If I can understand what the author is trying to say, then the author achieved their goal. That being said, I wish my mom did use spell check or autocorrect because her messages often require a degree in linguistics to decipher, but because of typos, not spelling. Maybe she'll influence the next evolution in typed communication :) Edit - formatting