Dear iPhone,
I have long come to terms with the fact that I have a bit of a potty mouth. I’m not especially proud of it, but it’s a part of who I am. It’s just the way it is. My parents are no longer shocked and appalled by my language. My friends all expect it from me. The babysitters I employ have picked their jaws up off of the floor and recovered. It’s just not a problem. Really.
So, I don’t appreciate you taking it upon yourself to clean up my language. For instance, if I say “Fuck you,” I mean “Fuck you” and not the “Duck you” that you’d prefer I type. For the record, I was saying it in total jest. Not that I owe you an explanation. And what does “What the Dell” even mean? If you’re smart enough to store my music, my address book and the entire world wide web, perhaps you could gain the common sense to replace Hell with Heck. It would still piss me off, but at least it would be sensible.
And, while you’re at it, please learn my freaking name. It’s Jill. J-I-L-L. Signing e-mails “Kill” isn’t really the message I want to send, and it’s pretty contradictory to the Pollyanna you are trying to turn me into.
Can you work with me here? I’d really hate to have to get a Blackberry; the iPhone is so much more bad ass. I mean, bad ash.
Sincerely yours,
Scary Mommy
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{ 80 comments… read them below or add one }
*snort* maybe you should trade it in for an ipad???
nic @mybottlesup´s last blog ..i made my first mocha, nearly broke the machine, overflowed scalding hot espresso on myself and didn’t froth properly
:) Clearly Mac had no women on that product development team.
Right now, I am wishing that my iPhone came with an automatic screen cleaner because I just spit my diet coke out laughing. Seriously, how hard could it be to add screen wipers to this thing? WTD?
Gwen´s last blog ..If You are Moving, I will Take Your “Crap”
What the Dell? LOL. Maybe that’s an Apple swipe at Dell?
I’m sure there’s an app available which will help you de-clean your language. And don’t tell my wife about Apple’s censoring technology. She just might force me to get one as a sole means of communicating…
on second thought, that iPad does look pretty cool. So, let me send you her email address.
LOL, I never thought of it that way. Kind of genius!
I think there is a way to disable the auto spelling. I’ve just been too lazy to investigate doing so. Sometimes I just don’t care. And sometimes it’s just entertaining to send messages to people with strange words and have something else to blame for it.
Although it doesn’t have the same effect when I’m angry with my husband and tell him to “Go to hill.” :-)
Michele´s last blog ..Give Me Some Respect!
The problem is that, most times, it’s quite handy. And I don’t think you can add selective words. Or, can you? Huh.
After having my own day with spell checks and typing blunders, I really enjoyed reading this. I though living in Utah was bad enough. They say things here like “oh, my frick.” Who knows maybe “what the dell” is coming next.
I so loved this post! I have the dreaded potty mouth and my Droid thinks iit needs to correct it with words that most definitely don’t go along with the feel I’m trying to get across. Stupid ass smartphones!
Good News! Are you ready??? The Phone Will Learn! It takes a loooooong time. Not sure why it takes so long, but it does. Well, I guess it would depend on how frequently you are deleting the D’s and adding the F’s, etc etc etc. But from my own experience, the beloved little iPhone you hastily send off your emails from will learn. As one commenter said, you CAN turn off the auto-correct, but damn if it isn’t helpful in most situations. So here’s a thought, send off an email a day with those favorite *corrected* words and we’ll see if the darn thing figures it out!
:)
Sarah´s last blog ..This is my life: Just don’t call me Lois
Really? REALLY?? I’ve had the phone for a year and a half! And I say fuck a lot. A LOT.
And, no, I am not sexting. I am merely using it in context. So there.
SO SO true, Jill!!! Hahaha… I hate correcting my iphone when I know I’ve spelled a word correct! So irritating!
Loukia´s last blog ..We’ve come a long way, baby!
Like Sarah, I also taught my iPhone bad words. *sniff* I’m so proud. Keep at it, it will learn.
Lauren´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday
Love. this. I am scared to get an iphone because my hands tend to get a bit Jeff Goldblum-y after 2 or 3 coffees… :)
Well guess I’ll scratch that piece of ship off my list! LOL!
Keyona´s last blog ..This Morning I Got Pulled Aside By The Police
Oh fuck.
I’m getting an iPhone tomorrow and I have THIS to look forward to? I thought Apple products were far more advanced than that. I’m a bit saddened…
Brilliant Sulk´s last blog ..Weirdo Wednesday
True. iPhone makes way too many assumptions, but it doesn’t make the mistake my last phone constantly made. Apparently, the LG Chocolate doesn’t have the word ‘home’ in it’s vocabulary and automatically translated 4-6-6-3 into ‘good-looking’.
Imagine:
“I’m good-looking!”
“When will you be good-looking?”
“When you’re good-looking, can you let the dogs out?”
“I’m not good-looking yet, but I will be in 20 minutes.”
At least my iPhone helped me get over my ‘good-looking’ complex.
Soliloquy´s last blog ..I Just Want To Say…
If you type “fuck” enough, eventually the iPhone will learn it. Mine learned it a loooong time ago.
Stimey´s last blog ..My First BlogHer Post of the Year: Big News!
Well I don’t have a potty mouth but I still hate that it changes so many of my words. Somehow I always get MSG and LED in my messages. And I usually don’t notice the words that don’t make sense until after I’ve hit send. “What the dell?” is so gonna be my new thing.
Joy´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday: Wild Hair
I have the EXACT same problem with my Blackberry. It makes me say stupid things instead of obscene things like I mean. Pisses me the fuck off
paige´s last blog ..Project Rebound–Foxy and Dad
I tried ever since I had kids to clean up my potty mouth…with no luck I may add. I try not to drop f-bombs when the girls are around but I will not say it has never happened. usually we are in the car and an idiot driver involved…not me :)
I do not have an iphone or blackberry…soon I keep promising myself. But I think it is hilarious that it changes your name to Kill.
This Mama Works It!´s last blog ..Let’s Talk Money! My First Month On a Budget….Ever!
Yeah, one needn’t have an iPhone or BlackBerry to get the spell-shaft. With Lage as my last name, I get “Large” a lot. Thanks, SpellCheck.
Have a great weekend, Jill. :)
Cheryl´s last blog ..Marvel, If You Will
Ouch! I would not take it well if my phone called me fat. Stupid, I can handle. Fat? No way.
Scary Mommy´s last blog ..iPhone spell check: What the duck?
You are my hero. Seriously.
God, I wish I could write like that! You took every thought in my head and put it into this post.
I wouldn’t trade my iPhone for anything! Even if I to rewrite the same word 8 times until it understands that I REALLY mean THAT word.
Sophia’s Mom´s last blog ..Window Shopping on 5th Avenue: Holidays & The City (Part 3)
I totally understand. It regularly changes my words!
Kimberly´s last blog ..It’s Me Again
I don’t need a phone making me feel bad about myself…
The Pursuit of Mommyness´s last blog ..Read How this Mompreneur is a Virtual CFO for Small Business
Seriously? “Kill”? I think that’s kind of AWESOME. You should make that your “handle” for iphone communication.
Why The Face?
Lynn from For Love or Funny´s last blog ..My husband lied to me.
Son of a bitch. Now I will never get a fucking iphone. Those pricks. They are a bunch of asshole bastards.
OR Son of a twitch. I will never get a plucking iphone. Those bricks. They are a bunch of rectum basters.
–>My “ducking” blackberry never tries to school me in not swearing. Whew.
;-)
WebSavvyMom´s last blog ..Flashback Friday (Part 47) – CC’s Housewarming
I just snorted over rectum basters. And now I have a visual in my head.
Scary Mommy´s last blog ..iPhone spell check: What the duck?
The blackberry tells me I spell shit wrong all the time and it really pisses me off. It tells me I spell piss wrong too.
Jennifer´s last blog ..Where was the mom in all of those stories…
I thought I was the only one who was fighting with that damn phone over foul language. If I wanna say HELL then that is EXACTLY what I want to say. Thankyouverymuchdumbphone.
JenniferG of Hip As I Wanna Be´s last blog ..Just. Have. To. Comment. Cannot. Resist. THE iPAD! (Snicker)
My phone has the same problem and it’s not new or anything. That’d be especially frustrating with something as advanced as the iPhone.
Btw, the intentional spelling out of your name made me giggle. My mom is Jill, and she has a problem with PEOPLE asking how she spells her name all the time. She was born in ’54 for Christ sake. (Sorry Mom!) I have to tell her about Kill, cuz that’s just too funny!
jen´s last blog ..on the menu Monday- Pizza Rolls
This is the hand-held device version of my own personal hell, which is fighting the copy machines at work which all think they are smarter than I am and that they know I don’t actually want to copy that whole page but only want the part with the words, and I want it turned vertically.
MommyTime´s last blog ..Something had to give, and I picked dust bunnies.
LOVE it. As I approach forty, I have also come to terms with my potty mouth. I get it from my mother, who swore like a sailor. Runs deep, I guess. If someone is so appalled by my language, it probably means we’re not meant to be friends anyway. xoxo
RLG´s last blog ..Office Space
true dat. this is what I get:
Dear Train, lets get together later. xo, Alex
translation: Dear Tricia, let’s get together later, xo Alexis
That’s funny! My phone (not an iPhone of course) doesn’t spell check at all. I had no idea there was a phone on the market that would censor your typing!
I don’t really understand how the iPhone decides what things to auto correct to. It seems to get my name right, but misses other really key, basic words. I would be curious to know what dictionary they are using.
Alecia, Hoobing Family Adventures´s last blog ..Separation Anxiety
Well duck. And I was thinking of getting one.
You and my daughter must be somehow distantly related. I’m learning that she has the potty mouth disease and I know not of where it came. (eyes rolling around innocently) I recently posted about this mystery and used the youtube video from the Christmas Story as my example.
Lori´s last blog ..I Don’t Care What They Say About Feminine
clearly liberals designed the software like that. LOL!
dawn´s last blog ..gingerbread cookies
HA! I don’t know if I’m supposed to be laughing, but that is ducking hilarious!
You bought the wrong version, you should have gotten the iFone.
It’s mainframe is directly connected to urbandictionary.com.
WildlyBland´s last blog ..Freaky Friday: Because My Imagination Runs Wild
…does the iPhone let you program your own vocab into it? A word list?
Being a BB person I have gone thru and assigned my word list with a few profanities of my own…evidently the folks at RIM aren’t quite as concerned with editing/censoring my texts and emails. :)
Hang in there, Kill.
I don’t have an IPhone, but that would drive me batshit! Now I’m wondering what IPhone would correct “batshit” to?
TheKitchenWitch´s last blog ..Neighbor Friday: Lost in Suburban Bliss
This is precisely the reason I turned off predictive texting on the Crackberry.
Sometimes you just need to call someone a fucktard without a barrage of inanimate judgment. How quickly (and often) I’ve turned the term on my hand held computing device…
YES. But, uh, after reading some of these comments, I guess I just need to curse more via text. I can do that.
LOL. Spellcheck makes me smile.
If it makes you feel better, my husband Stu ends up as “Stud” when spell check kicks in.
Kelly Deneen´s last blog ..Photostory Friday: 365, Week 2
Hilarious! I thought maybe is was “What the Dell?” for “What the Devil?” but I get it, I’ve just been reading too much Arthur Conan Doyle or seeing too many old British stereotypes.
Have you ever read Michael Ian Black’s series of letters to a squirrel? They were the start of my love of writing to inanimate objects, animals, dead people, and people you’ll never meet. Pretty funny stuff!
Lori Z.´s last blog ..Silly Haiku Wednesday: Changes
I totally feel your pain. I do have a freakin blackberry, and nothing gets the fucking point across when you are bitching out your teen in a text like “what the Duck were you thinking”. Now, how are they ever going to take you freakin serious again.
Hi Jill,
Too freakin funny! My phone has sent some interesting messages with the word predictor feature. Well, just to let you know, you can say whatever potty words you want around me. I don’t offend easily! The important thing is being yourself.
You would love the SureType on my BB flip phone…it has 2 letters per key so it tries to predict what you are trying to say. ARE and SEE are the same combination of keys so I have MANY times typed to someone that I will “Are you later.” Again I ask if it is smart enough to predict the word I am trying to say, why isn’t it smart enough to look at the words AROUND it to figure out the context? Like how hard can that be??
For the record though, you can add words to your dictionary on a BlackBerry so that it won’t replace Jill with Kill. I actually have the same problem with Erin and Rein but it learned eventually. And RIM doesn’t seem to mind profanity…and people think that Canadians are so polite!
Try resetting *JUST* your keyboard. I did it for my iPhone today bc my phone had learned some bad words…. Like mr for me….. And now it will gets fuck, in all it’s forms, damn, bitch and most the others aside from Hell. Apprently it wants me to go to he’ll, oh it will learn
Bean – such a good one!!! I think I snorted at my desk.
All of this touch technology just makes me have to all paranoid about having fat fingertips too!
jeez…
swirl girl´s last blog ..The One In Which She Shares What She Has Learned
Well, I was gonna wait to get my iPhone. I don’t think I should now. I totally need to get it earlier so I can send a text with ‘rectum basters’ in it! My mother would love that. ROFLMAO
uthostage´s last blog ..The Keys Birthday Bash
I know. My co-blogger complains about it all the time. The iphone also doesn’t understand IKEA! WTF??? But oh, it does seem to understand wtf. . that’s good.
x,
Paula
http://www.adhocmom.com
adhocmom´s last blog ..Is it Socially Acceptable to Wear Maternity Jeans When Your Daughter is Nearly Two Years Old?
aaaah hahaha! I actually got one of those e-mails signed Kill from you :-D
Stupid proper iPhone.
Elisa´s last blog ..Stella McCartney for Adidas, Spring 2010
Loojs lije you got dat dingers…
(Translation: Looks like you got fat fingers)
As I look at the keyboard it appears that these two spelling transpositions are right next to each other. F becomes D and J becomes K. I am not implying that you have extra large fingers, or are gravitationally challenged, but it may just be that the keyboard is not picking up these particular letters correctly.
(Kust my two cents).
Christopher (AKA: CaJoh)´s last blog ..F2: Vegitarian Chili
Don’t hurry to get a Blackberry. I’ve got one and it does the same thing. Drives me insane.
Lolli´s last blog ..Give Me Your Best Shot – Daughter in Law?
If you type it enough it will learn it. My iPhone knows “fucktard”.
Suzy Voices´s last blog ..Fight for Air
So, I googled something along the lines of “Why won’t my iphone learn the word hell?” or something like that and I came upon this. Great post and I generally feel your pain.
My real response is to the user who said the iPhone will eventually learn a certain word. This is generally true. If you ‘x’ out a suggestion enough, iPhone will generally learn what you are trying to say (My iPhone has even learned when I’m trying to spell my friends’ uncommon last names), but at least one word the iPhone absolutely will learn is hell. This is maddening. They should allow users to make ‘dictionary rules’ where you can rank words you’d generally like to have come up first. (Like, Jill could rank “Jill” ahead of “Kill” or “fuck” ahead of “duck”).
Bleh, it looks like my ultimate goal to add hell is defeated. I would say heck, but I’m sure my phone would just change it to neck =P
Bleh for typos… I meant the iPhone will NOT learn the word hell.. obviously.
Don’t switch… Just deal with it I’m sure the Blackberry is just as bad… I have one, I don’t cuss so I’m not sure, but I have iPhone envy and so I say again… just “sincerely kill” people and count your blessed iPhone applications that I so desperately wish I had… lol :)
Shelle-BlokThoughts´s last blog ..My daughter and Grape Medicine…
Ah ha ha haaa…too funny.
Damn it CommentLuv, I know I’ve been slacking on my blogging but I actually DO have a new post today. *sheesh*
Carrie´s last blog ..Sleep, baby, sleep
Love this Kill… I mean Jill! My blackberry is currently translating into British English, except I am not British. Not sure how that happened.
Cybil´s last blog ..Is God a boy or a girl?
LMAO…that is really funny about the iPhone, though I’d reconsider the Blackberry because I wrote a good post on dating last week and saved it as an email draft. Turned off my Blackberry and the draft disappeared.
Seriously, what the Duck?! :)
NYC Girl´s last blog ..January Accountability
Haha, “Kill”! Sometimes I love my ipod touch and sometimes the spell check drives me insane!! What the duck!? ;)
sometimes i wonder about our so called smart technology. everytime i go to write the word FOR, it writes EMS. every. duckking time.
scrappysue´s last blog ..spammers you suck
my iPhone seems to think that when I type hell I actually mean he’ll – which I pretty much never do. Apparently I type hell a lot and it wants to modulate my swearing for me. I am really glad to find that my iPhone isn’t alone in this prudish behaviour!
pixielation´s last blog ..Going cold turkey. Or cold firefox.
Oh the many joys of spell check. It is even more fun when a 9 year old is using it.
Jack´s last blog ..A Restaurant Surprise
LOL and I gotta say that my blackberry lets me say fuck and ass w/o correcting me all the time!
This is just plain funny. I get so frustrated with my iphone, but it’s usually my error when there is a misspelling. Nice post, Kill!
LZ @ My Messy Paradise´s last blog ..Menage a Monday: Featuring Lizz, from One Nerve Left
LMAO this is my biggest problem with mine too! I told everyone on Facebook that I almost got hit when I was putting my groceries in my CAT. No one cared I almost died they just thought it was funny that I put them in my CAT.
Mom Taxi Julie´s last blog ..Leap Year
Too funny. Spellchecks are stupid sometimes. I still can’t believe tweetdeck’s spellcheck can’t recognize tweetdeck.
Seattledad (Luke, I am Your Father)´s last blog ..Naturally, He’s a Whiz Kid
couldn’t have said it better myself….
Here, here! I know just what you mean. I’ve sent many a text with the wrong words! This was my first visit to your blog. Keep up the good work!
Judy´s last blog ..10 Things to Work on this Year
I’m just shocked that they’d offer up “Dell” as a substitute. Seems to me they’d offer up something Apple’s not so, you know, in competition with. At least something more along the lines of “What the Google” just to suck up to their frenemy.
patois´s last blog ..How Very Un-Christian of You
I had to stop signing emails “Regards, Jen” once my underwritter called me and asked why I called her a Retard. My iPhone does the same thing, but the worst part of the iPhone is the “20% Remaining” sign. *SIGH*