tumbledry

Zonino

Despite its ungainly title, “Saussure, Predictive Text, Cycling Awake and the word ‘Book’” is an interesting article. Here’s the thesis: two unrelated books on your bookshelf can become associated in your memory, simply because they are next to one another. Similarly, two unrelated words on your phone can become associated in your memory, simply because T9 predictive text puts them next to one another. As a result, language grows in richness, because new associations are made on the bookshelves of our phones. It’s a really neat idea, one that has produced real-world results. For example, the word “Zonino” is “text misprediction” for “WooHoo!”

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