billpalmer.net

I've gotten quite used to the iPhone's virtual keyboard. I can't really identify with fellow early adopters who claim they still can't get the hang of it, and I suspect they're a rather small group making a disproportionate amount of noise. In any case typos can and do happen no matter what kind of device you're pecking away on.

One of the coolest things about the iPhone is that its typo auto-corrector is smart enough that it can often sense that you're typing every letter of a word by pressing one key to the left or right of the one you intended, which occasionally happens to me while I'm walking while typing or otherwise not paying proper attention to what I'm typing. I'm always left smiling when I manage to type nearly every letter of a word wrong, and near the end of the word the iPhone is still cheerfully suggesting the word it somehow knew I was trying to type. As a result, when I'm typing a particularly long word and I realize halfway through that I'm missing on every keystroke, I sometimes just keep going under the assumption that the iPhone will be able to fish the correct word out for me in the end.

And I guess I've gotten a little too used to the iPhone saving me in this regard, because last night while I was walking home from yoga class I was replying to a Twitter message and was attempting to type "thanks for the encouragement." I knew I was choking pretty badly while trying to type the word "encouragement" but kept going expecting it all to work out. Except for once my iPhone left me to my own devices, and since I didn't bother to glance at my message before I hit the Update button, I realized I had just posted a message that said "thanks for the enxoyrahemeny."

When "Silent Bob" Kevin Smith was doing his Q&A at Macworld Expo, someone asked him why he makes fun of his poorly-receieved movie "Jersey Girl" so often. Kevin said it's to steal the thunder of anyone else who might be planning on making fun of it. And you know what? It works. So I borrowed his strategy by making a subsequent Twitter post making fun of myself for this most unexplainable of typos, except now I've apparently started a trend and added a new (very difficult to spell) word to the English language.

This morning I awoke to find the word "enxoyrahemeny" used in the post that someone made to my Facebook wall, and I suspect there will be more where that came from. Hey, why not? It's a fun word. Now I just have to come up with a proper pronunciation and formal definition. Suggestions welcome :-)