Most of us have been in awkward situations where we’re typing something on the phone and the autocorrect function changes some of our words into something ridiculous and embarrassing. It gets even more awkward if we notice it after sending the message.
However, how often do we hear about stories where autocorrect does something unexpectedly awesome? Well, that’s exactly what happened to one Twitter user. Writer and host of the Empire podcast Chris Hewitt started a viral Twitter thread after noting that autocorrect changed ‘Jesus Christ’ to ‘Jesus Heist,’ and how this totally sounds like the name of a movie.
People loved Hewitt’s idea so much, they started sharing their own thoughts about what the movie could be about, what the taglines should be, as well as what some alternative film names could be. Prepare yourselves for a lot of puns.
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While it’s a lot of fun to poke fun at autocorrect (especially when it leads to people making so many good puns), the fact of the matter is, it’s actually pretty good at what it does.
According to Business Insider, the hardest part of an autocorrect program isn’t correcting spelling or grammar: “It's interpreting what you meant to say from what you wrote.” But we don’t notice all the times that autocorrect does its job well. We only notice it when it messes up.
That means that autocorrect making mistakes just 5 percent of the time will be more visible than it working as intended the rest of the time. And autocorrect programs tend to make the most mistakes when we try to swear. Perhaps it's our AI overlords trying to control what we type?
We always have the option of editing our phone dictionary by adding or deleting some words and tailoring everything to our unique way of writing. This way, we can avoid strange (yet hilarious) autocorrects like ‘Jesus Heist.’
What are the coolest or most embarrassing changes that autocorrect has made for you? Have you ever been in an awkward situation because of autocorrecting? What did you think of the movie idea about Jesus? Would it be something that you’d go to the movie theater to watch? And last but not least, which puns were your favorite and why? Let us know in the comments below.