Emphasis Panda

Aiyo Rukku, my sms should have read 'You should have been HERE' and not 'you should have been HER'!!

Puzzled?

Or are you going: "Well, what do you expect? She writes these columns for a living ... something had to give."

True – but that's not it ... not yet anyway.

Actually, that title was for another piece, and was supposed to be: 'Enjaai Pannu.'

Yep – 'Auto-correct' has struck again.

Technology has certainly come dangerously close to being too clever for its own good.

And yet – all those 'iThingies' everyone walks around with?

Not as smart or global as they think they are.

Inherently whimsical – like arbitrarily changing 'future' to 'fuhrer' (tad oxy-moronic, eh?) – 'Auto-correct' reaches new heights of quirkiness when we sub-continent-ers write the way we speak, in a rainbow mix of languages.

'Veedu' becomes 'feud'... a Freudian slip, that one; 'Shanthi' becomes 'Shaking' and, recently, an old friendship went bust, because your text beginning: 'Dear Mala...' was changed to 'Dear Momma...', leading to accusations of making age-ist jokes.

With 'Auto-correct', language does more swirls, curls and turns than a Cirque du Soleil star acrobat.

Incidentally, hitting 'send' without carefully re-reading your missive, and then yelling: "No, no, no...!" doesn't work.

Also, isn't this a bit bossy? Re-writing someone else's text without bothering to check with them first?

Itchiest, time to step in.

(Sorry – that should have read 'Tech-ies').

See?