back to article Auto-correct cock-up sends schools into lockdown

Auto-correct is known to be the cause of many a hilarious text misunderstanding, but when one student sent a message to say they were "gunna be" at school and the word became "gunman", you can imagine the chaos it would cause. Particularly in America. That is exactly what happened to one student at Lanier Technical College in …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks

    From before the Forever War:

    http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/UnixReview/col38.html

    1. SYNTAX__ERROR
      Happy

      Re: I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks

      Excuse me if I've missed something, but that's a quote from Johnny Mnemonic. Where does the Forever War come into this?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And what happened to the sender

    I imagine 50-100 heavily armed idiots shouting "hut... hut... " surrounded and tazed him if he was lucky.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And what happened to the sender

      You forgot the tanks and the AC-130 gunship

  3. Aaron Em

    God bless the future

    I don't know what I'd do without stories like this one.

  4. Bit Brain

    Takes "damn you, autocorrect!" to a whole new level.

  5. Citizen Kaned

    well.

    surely, if you are so lazy as to not write 'going to' the correct (well, kind of) abbreviation is 'gonna'.

    thicko can't even do 'txt spk' right!

    remind me again, what do they teach kids at school? surely in the days of smart phones it takes 0.0001 of a second to write real words now.

    even my barely literate boss (no joke) can write on an iphone.

    1. Aaron Em

      "Real words"?

      lol ur jus 2 old

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Bakunin
      Facepalm

      Re: well.

      "remind me again, what do they teach kids at school?"

      Evidently not capitalisation.

      So you've never used an abbreviation or colloquialism when talking with or writing to friends? You've never hit send on an old T9 phone only to realise you've asked a friend if he fancied a 'riot in the sub'?

      Everyone makes a mistake from time to time. Give the kid a break.

      1. Arrrggghh-otron

        Re: Re: well.

        You could forgive the auto correct mistake or sending it to the wrong number. But both at the same time?

        Auto correct and twitchy touch screens is why I like hardware keyboards...

      2. AndrueC Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: Re: well.

        I turned off the autocorrect on my 'droid within a week of getting it. I still fail to understand why anyone would think defaulting to the 'phone's suggestion is sensible. The default should be /what I typed/ not what the phone thinks I meant.

      3. Citizen Kaned

        Re: Re: well.

        i also cant be arsed to capitalise when im on forums. i guess people are smart enough to understand a word if it doesnt have a capital. you also notice that i dont bother with apostrophes either.

        i was mainly joking when i said about the teaching in schools, as in they dont teach abbreviations properly any more.

      4. P. Lee
        Childcatcher

        Re: Re: well.

        Not sure about the phone in question, but my Samsung makes it harder to misspell than to do it right. Misspellings bring up correction options which take longer to get rid of than swiping the proper word. I imagined that this was the case on most phones these days. I seem to think even my nokia 6310i balked at mispelt words.

        Anyway, it makes the autocorrect website seem so much more believable now, which is comforting. :)

  6. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Yes, but...

    ...did they [shoot|taze|guantanamise] the sender?

    Btw, maybe it's just me and iPhone, but why is it that I cannot activate spell checker without auto-correct?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Autocorrect is a dick.

    My housemate accidentally described me as his 'playmate' thanks to autocorrect. This doesn't help matters since we're described as being like a married couple for:

    Bickering in the pub about housework, laziness, each others stupidity.

    Never, ever, having sex.

    1. MissingSecurity
      Coat

      Re: Autocorrect is a dick.

      Sound like a Marriage to me!

      (Someone had too)

      1. AdamWill
        WTF?

        Re: Re: Autocorrect is a dick.

        Yes. Yes, that was the joke. Congratulations on getting it, and thanks for letting the rest of us know you did.

    2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      My commiseration to you and your placemat.

      The selection of "related stories" is interesting - "how to slay a cellphone", "killer SMS". Like so many computer systems, if it was actually intelligent it'd be -really- frightening. Or if we can thank a human sub-editor, then the same applies.

  8. the-it-slayer
    Linux

    Eh?

    Why should the yoof of today even bother with txt lnguage? Back in the day of 3310s and such like, pay as you go customers wanted to get the most out of a £10 top-up. Solution? Txt spk tht only needed 2 fit in 160 chars. It's an excuse for quick discussion, but serious? No need with iMessage, BBM and unlimited texts.

    Again, quack!

  9. jai

    easiest

    day

    off

    school

    ever

    1. Al Jones
      Alert

      That's what ! thought!

      I've a feeling we might see a sudden upsurge of kids texting "gunna be" the morning of a test they haven't prepared for!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "We want to emphasise that the recipient did the right thing in reporting the message."

    Not if they didn't first question the message and asked the sender to confirm.

    1. Bush_rat
      Trollface

      lol

      Sender: "gunman at West Hall"

      Receiver: "lol are you kidding?"

      Sender: "no im gunman at West Hall"

      Receiver: "WTF? Why?!?"

      Sender: "board, i wanna do something"

      Receiver: "im calling the cops..."

      I think the situation would be even worse

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Presumably the law is different in the US.

      In the UK doing that would (technically) be a breach of WCA.

      (and yes, I know nobody would ever push for charges and EU law has a counter argument... sheesh)

  11. Just Thinking

    WTF

    Why is the word "gunm4n" even in the auto-correct dictionary to start with? It isn't a word any sane person would include in a text message.

    Does it insert obscenities too?

    Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to come up with a list of sensitive words where the damage caused by inserting it accidentally far outweighs the benefit of not having to type it in full?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: WTF

      "It says in this article that the gunman had an Indian passport when..."

      "Hey, you wanna go see 'The Second Gunman' at Uppity Theater?"

      "The Register ran a story about some kid's autocorrect turning 'gunman' into 'gunman', and his school gets locked down!"

      ...And did you just self-censor 'gunman'?

      Also, I've wondered what happens when it's a female. 'Gunwoman' is awkward. Gunlady? Too prissy. Gungirl? Too comic. Gundame? Too manga. Seriously, what's the standard?

      1. Doug Glass
        Go

        Re: Re: WTF

        "Gun moll". Look it up.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: Re: WTF

          Gunmoll.. Yeah, I could get behind that. But while we're in that era, how about 'gunbroad'? I rather like the sound of it. Naturally, males have other options as well - gundude? Gunbloke? And, of course, el Reg's undoubted choice: Guntard.

          1. Bush_rat
            Thumb Up

            Re: Re: Re: Re: WTF

            guntard? yeah, thats one for auto-correct,

            "guntard at West Hall" is much better

        2. Random Noise

          Re: Re: Re: WTF

          Or for the misogynisticly inclined "Gun Ho!"

  12. Keep Refrigerated
    Headmaster

    I'm blowing the balloon sky high!!

    So autocorrect is accepted, but not bad jokes, hyperbole, colloquialisms or mixed metaphors?!

    I wonder how solid this is as a defense?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not just in America

    The sad reality is senseless shootings are happening at schools and elsewhere around the globe, not just in the U.S.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Not just in America

      Don't worry - programs are being put in place to help ensure that shootings will be more sensible in the future.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anybody for "Brazil"?

    Reminds me quite a lot of the premise behind Brazil -- still one of the darkest bits of film I've ever seen. The main difference is that THIS involves user stupidity, not just than the insanity of a whole society.

  15. chr0m4t1c

    Good job he didn't use Twitter

    He'd have been charged under the terrorism laws.

    Well, if he'd been in the UK anyway.

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