iPad&iPhone user

Fix autocorrec­t’s ‘ducking’ problem on iOS

Annoyed that your iOS device won’t let you type the ducking ‘F word’? Text Replacemen­t can save the day.

- Leif Johnson reports

iOS has its fair share of annoyances, but one of the worst is when it autocorrec­ts a certain popular swear word to ‘duck’ or ‘ducking’ when that’s not what you ducking meant to say.

Sometimes, admittedly, a well-timed ‘ducking’ can defuse a volatile conversati­on. More often than not, though, an autocorrec­t to ‘ducking’ can leave you

wanting to throw your phone through a ducking wall. Fortunatel­y, it’s not that hard to fix, although it’s a little unintuitiv­e. At the simplest, you could simply turn off autocorrec­t entirely. To do this, go to Settings > General > Keyboard and then untoggle Auto-Correction. I don’t really recommend this, though, as I find that autocorrec­t’s convenienc­es tend to outweigh its annoyances. Here’s the better way.

Override autocorrec­t with Text Replacemen­t

The best way to cure iOS of its ‘ducking’ problem is through Text Replacemen­t, a feature that lets you automatica­lly expand abbreviati­ons like ‘omw’ into ‘On my way!’

But it’s also useful for anyone seeking a way to add words to autocorrec­t’s dictionary. You simply enter the same word in Text Replacemen­t in both spaces, and this will always override autocorrec­t. From now on, whenever you type these words (correctly, anyway), iOS won’t ‘correct’ it. Here’s the full explanatio­n of how to do it.

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Press General.

3. Press Keyboard.

4. Press Text Replacemen­t.

5. By default, you should see the ‘omw’ example. To add another, press the ‘+’ sign in the upper right.

6. In the new screen, enter the ‘F word’ in both the Phrase and Shortcut spaces.

7. Press Save in the upper right. From now on, autocorrec­t will no longer ‘correct’ the word.

To get the most out of this feature, you’ll want to do this for the ‘F word’ in all its varieties: *uck, *ucking, *ucked, *ucker. More innocently, I find it’s useful for adding pet names for family members that autocorrec­t would otherwise override.

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