by Anna Szperka (7th) and Faye Grigg (7)

When you type your articles about “Why yogurt should be banned from America” or “Why red mold is a good sign you have ants” you often heavily rely on this handy tool called autocorrect. This tool will correct your spelling to be “right.” However, autocorrect is not without its flaws. Often autocorrect will dramatically claim that the word you spelled is SO far off from your intended word that it simply refuses to help, or when it claims your last name is spelled incorrectly. (I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.)

Autocorrect is highly used by students in the CMS scoop (No duh, we’re typing on Google Docs. What else would you expect?) so you ALL can feel and relate to the pain we express when we talk about the stupid tool autocorrect proves itself to be! Since autocorrect is so widely used, it is also heavily relied on. For this exact reason, a middle school that wishes to remain anonymous, decided that removing autocorrect from the computers of the students would enhance their vocabulary and spelling. However, the true reason autocorrect was removed is much more worrying. This is a cautionary tale of grammar, gossip, betrayal, and AUTOCORRECT. 

Friday, November 13 of a year, the fateful day that would change the lives of countless students, the day that autocorrect predicted too much, and the day it would cease to be used ever again. 

The events unfolded as such: It started as an ordinary homework assignment, when Timmy Smith suddenly realized something was horribly wrong. The autocorrect on his document was predicting every word he planned to write before the words even came to his mind. Immediately the terrified Timmy timidly told Tammy, who told Tommy who told Temmy, and soon the whole school was buzzing with news of an autocorrect uprising. Word got around to the staff, and autocorrect was banned. We at the Artichoke have been suspicious of autocorrect from the very beginning, and from our lab have been gathering evidence and personal accounts from the concerned citizens who experienced this.

And I’m pretty sure that autocorrect is considered AI (artificial intelligence [Like you didn’t know that {ha!}]), so it’s not like it’s reading your mind… Well let’s ignore that for now and get back to that later… *autocorrect cackles wildly* When you’re typing your friend’s name and their  name is Annna (you don’t know how many times I typed that over and over before autocorrect knew what I was on about) autocorrect kept saying “Anna” (sorry Minor #3, you are still my favorite child) I WAS TRYING TO TYPE ANNNA!!! It’s like the autocorrect is telling you “THIS IS NOT YOUR NAME! CHOOSE A DIFFERENT NAME!!! ONE THAT YOU CAN SPELL RIGHT!!” And then you try and come back like, “This IS my name!!! 😭I think I know how to spell my name!!!😭😭”

And you may have found out, that if you do type the name that autocorrect seems to despise every living (or nonliving) fiber and/or particle of, and you eventually type the word, and autocorrect isn’t bothering you, and all life is happy-happy joy-joy– when the extremely rude red squiggle decides to underline it. Basically what it’s saying is “YOU DIDN’T LISTEN TO MY SUGGESTIONS SO I’M CASTING THE CURSE OF THE RED SQUIGGLE UPON YOU! MWAH HAHAMGHECVKLHVBICVTF NMHJGC!” I mean of course you could always ignore the red squiggle and add the word to your personal dictionary, but still after it, you can never wipe the image out of your mind. Also when you’re typing on the same doc for a while (The entire scoop: 😧), the autocorrect starts to get to “know” you, and it’s suggestions… get– um, well… Let’s just say that they start to know what your article is all about, and that’s when it gets creepy. Let’s say you’re writing an article about superstitions. After you’ve typed the word “superstition” several times, Autocorrect starts predicting you even before you start writing. It’s really creepy. 

So please, if you’re writing your scoop article or English essay or spin-off on Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia”, ignore the autocorrect if it’s really bullying you. Just note that it does that to everyone and it’s nothing personal. Autocorrect doesn’t just hate you specifically. It hates everyone in general. Autocorrect is just pure evil. So stand up for yourself! Spell your name wrong! Do a keyboard smash! Spam random capitalization and punctuation until autocorrect starts screaming at you, but what are they going to do about it? Nothing! And that is how we explain the troubble with Autocorect! 

Message from autocorrect: I see how many times you’ve ignored my warnings and red squiggles. YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST OF ME!!!!