For some odd reason, Messages on my iPhone doesn't seem to believe that "the"
is a word.

Slide-to-type offers "there", "three", "thee" (a word I use rather rarely) and
"they".

No sign of "the".

If I laboriously type in "the" one letter at a time, it ostentatiously shows
it bracketed in the auto-complete line below the text field: «the» - like a
fastidious housemate holding up an offending item that they found in a
washbasin.

In other applications, "the" seems to be perfectly acceptable.

Daniele

D.M. Procida <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

> For some odd reason, Messages on my iPhone doesn't seem to believe that "the"
> is a word.
>
> Slide-to-type offers "there", "three", "thee" (a word I use rather rarely) and
> "they".
>
> No sign of "the".
>
> If I laboriously type in "the" one letter at a time, it ostentatiously shows
> it bracketed in the auto-complete line below the text field: «the» - like a
> fastidious housemate holding up an offending item that they found in a
> washbasin.
>
> In other applications, "the" seems to be perfectly acceptable.

Is there an "Add to dictionary" option?

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
> D.M. Procida <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> For some odd reason, Messages on my iPhone doesn't seem to believe that "the"
>> is a word.
>>
>> Slide-to-type offers "there", "three", "thee" (a word I use rather rarely) and
>> "they".
>>
>> No sign of "the".
>>
>> If I laboriously type in "the" one letter at a time, it ostentatiously shows
>> it bracketed in the auto-complete line below the text field: «the» - like a
>> fastidious housemate holding up an offending item that they found in a
>> washbasin.
>>
>> In other applications, "the" seems to be perfectly acceptable.
>
> Is there an "Add to dictionary" option?

General -> Keyboards -> Text Replacement might be the place to add it or
edit what is already there?

<https://www.trustedreviews.com/how-to/how-to-add-new-words-to-the-iphone-autocorrect-dictionary-4287494>

No problem with “the” here though.

--
Cheers, Alan

On 29/12/2023 10:42, Alan B wrote:
> Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> D.M. Procida <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> For some odd reason, Messages on my iPhone doesn't seem to believe that "the"
>>> is a word.
>>>
>>> Slide-to-type offers "there", "three", "thee" (a word I use rather rarely) and
>>> "they".
>>>
>>> No sign of "the".
>>>
>>> If I laboriously type in "the" one letter at a time, it ostentatiously shows
>>> it bracketed in the auto-complete line below the text field: «the» - like a
>>> fastidious housemate holding up an offending item that they found in a
>>> washbasin.
>>>
>>> In other applications, "the" seems to be perfectly acceptable.
>>
>> Is there an "Add to dictionary" option?
>
> General -> Keyboards -> Text Replacement might be the place to add it or
> edit what is already there?
>
> <https://www.trustedreviews.com/how-to/how-to-add-new-words-to-the-iphone-autocorrect-dictionary-4287494>
>
> No problem with “the” here though.

In direct contrast to Daniele's experience, when I start a new iMessage
"The" is one of the suggested words before I even start typing anything.

But predictive text on the iPhone is pretty naff with some obvious
improvements not implemented.

For example: if I want start a message with the word "detain" then I get
the following suggestions as each letter is entered:

1:D "D" Do Did
2:De "De" Definitely Dear
3:Det "Det" Details Determined
4:Deta "Deta" Details Detail
5:Detai "Detai" Details Detail
6:Detain "Detain" Detained Detainee

Why is the word "Details" offered in steps 3, 4 and 5? If it wasn't
selected in step 3 then it won't be selected later. It should have been
replaced with something else in step 4.

Even worse, step 5 offers exactly the same options as step 4. It might
as well have given up at that point.

More subtly, why does step 4 offer "Details" and "Detail" - two similar
words when offering "Detain" at that point would save keystrokes?

Better still would be to offer "Detail" and "Detain" as word stems and,
after choosing Detain, the next set of choices should be the alternate
forms based on that stem: Detains, Detained, Detainee, Detainment etc.
It's easy enough to press space (which is still a large key and
therefore easy to hit) to signal that the end of the word has been
reached if the stem alone is sufficient.

On Windows phone you can swipe the suggested word list to the left and
see more options. Usually, by the 3rd letter, you're close enough that
it's quicker to swipe once or twice than enter another letter. Being
Nokia based, its predictive text generally worked better anyway.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey, England

On 28 Dec 2023 20:49:55 GMT, D.M. Procida
<daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

>For some odd reason, Messages on my iPhone doesn't seem to believe that "the"
>is a word.

My Forté Agent's dictionary did not believe that more than one vegan
could ever exist at any time. It accepts "vegan" as a word but it
pouted over "vegans".

Still, I'm surprised that "the" was objected to. It's a fairly common
word.

Have you tried high-lighting it and adding it to the dictionary?

>
>Slide-to-type offers "there", "three", "thee" (a word I use rather rarely) and
>"they".
>
>No sign of "the".
>
>If I laboriously type in "the" one letter at a time, it ostentatiously shows
>it bracketed in the auto-complete line below the text field: «the» - like a
>fastidious housemate holding up an offending item that they found in a
>washbasin.
>
>In other applications, "the" seems to be perfectly acceptable.

Is it possible that you double-spaced the "the " it objected to?
Some dictionaries are awfully finicky.

>
>Daniele

Happy New Year,

J.