Here is a funny quote from the comment on predictive text (think: T9) in the discussion about Android and mobile devices on Slashdot:
Predictive text helps a bit but sometimes it gets things so ducking wrong that I am sure the people who program it are a deliberately unhelpful bunch of ducking aunts.
Maybe I should adopt some sort of predictive text plugin for WordPress for those times when I feel like swearing…
I couldn’t agree with you more about the problems with ‘predictive text’. The bottom line is that although it’s a step in the right direction… it’s surely not the answer.
What would be better still would be the ability to have some abbreviated text that we type be expanded to the properly spelled and grammatically correct words/phrases.
Regardless of your current typing ability, it is possible to more than DOUBLE your effective typing speed and reduce the number of mistakes that you make (and the time/keystrokes required to key/correct them).
You can do this by learning typing shorthand.
Think of ‘tv’ (2 characters) for example. We all know that the full English word for that is ‘television’ (10 characters). Now anyone who would read ‘tv’ would automatically know that what is being referred to is in fact ‘television’. How about we look at an abbreviation that may be less widely recognized like ‘IBM’ for example? That abbreviation actually stands for ‘International Business Machines’ (in case you didn’t know). A three (3) character abbreviation (IBM) is used to replace thirty-three (33) characters. That’s a 92% savings.
With shorthand typing, it’s possible to uniquely identify words and phrases that we all type on a regular basis and develop shorthand abbreviations for them. Then we can type the abbreviations and have a software program automatically replace the abbreviations with the expanded words/phrases that they represent. Correctly spelled and capitalized. This will save a significant number of keystrokes and time.
I would like to invite you to check out my website (www.typeless.biz) and see how it’s possible to actually do LESS typing and to produce more output in less time. Also, you can lessen the likelihood of ever developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome which can put ALL of you typing out of commission for a long time.
Thanks