I'm a big fan of the
swipe-typing keyboard on Android phones. So I was interested when it came out a
few months ago that the swipe recognizer has a long list of words it won't recognize. There are the usual suspects, like "dock" and "shoot" (at least, that's what comes out if you try sweeping them.) But there is also a curious collection of other words that are verboten. For instance, many times I've tried to type "geek", which comes out as "Greek" or "feel" regardless of how careful my typing. The list of banned words seems arbitrary, so I decided to investigate:
A lot of sex-related terms don't work, including "sex" itself, which becomes "sec" or "seed." Here's what I got for a few others:
- Menstruation: menageries, menagerie
- Erection: Ervin
- Uterus: yetis, iri
- Yet it accepts "menopause" and "puberty." Or "udder" for that matter.
For the following words, it won't recognize the word automatically, but will offer it as one of the alternate possibilities the swiper can choose:
- Condom: condition
- Penis: permits, pennies
- Vagina: basins
- Testicle: twiddle, sickle
- Vulva: bulbs, villa
It won't recognize "gay", instead suggesting "gassy," "Gary," or "hay." Yet "lesbian" and "homosexual" are accepted.
Religious terms are just odd. Consider the branches of Islam:
- Sunni: Sino, sunk
- Shiite
- Sufi: studio
You'd think Shiite would be the one it would avoid. Lots of other religious terms worked, though: "Eucharist," "Hajj," "Imam," "Rabbi," "Kosher," "Halal."
How about Google's competitors?
- Samsung: Samsung
- Microsoft: Microsoft
- Lenovo: Kenobi
All in all it's quite silly. I could understand if they have it biased so that when there's some doubt, it chooses the less embarrassing word. And yet, I've lost count of the number of times it's interpreted "thing" as "thong."
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