cross-posted from: https://jorts.horse/users/fathermcgruder/statuses/112533105646508687

What is it about the text messages and emails sent by older people that make me feel like I’m having a stroke?

Maybe they’re used to various shortcuts in their writing that they picked up before autocorrect became common, but these habits are too idiosyncratic for autocorrect to handle properly. However, that doesn’t explain the emails I’ve had to decipher that were typed on desktop keyboards. Has anyone else younger than 45 or so felt similarly frustrated with geriatrics’ messages?

@asklemmy

  • CrimeDadOPMAEnglish
    2•6 months ago

    Well, here’s an example from my mom:

    […] please give John my cell # so that he can send or re-send the travel info. He sent it when I was at urgent care house but it has disappeared—thanks

    I had a hard time with this one because of the combination of ambiguous context, autocorrect, and genuine concern for my mom’s health as an aging person. We know multiple Johns and it seems like she thinks I was present for a conversation she had with one of them. Thankfully, she was never at an “urgent care house”. I think she was trying to type “ur house” and that’s where autocorrect decided to help. There’s no need to shorten “your” to “ur” anymore, but she still does.

    From my older bosses, I frequently encounter run-on sentences combined with missing punctuation, prepositions, and conjunctions. I have to re-read these messages multiple times to figure them out. If I ask for clarification then somehow I end up looking like the idiot.

    I obviously do not have a statistical sample, but it also seems like the worst offenders are iPhone users. Maybe I’m just used to a physical keyboard and Google keyboard on Android, but I feel sabotaged whenever I have to type on my daughter’s iPad. If my elders are typing on bad software keyboards, that certainly isn’t helping.