Perhaps our phones are trying to do us a favor by erring on the side of politeness, but boy, they sure do love to venture to keep us from swearing, dont they?
Unless you actually do regularly mean to playfully tell your friends to duck off, there are a few ways it’s possible for you to fix iOS Messages sometimes helpful, often annoying autocorrect featureand they work for more than just your popular swears.
Get your phone to stop writing ducking by adding a new contact
The quickest and dirtiest way to add your preferred swears into Messages autocorrect vocabulary is to add a new contact with the words you want your phone to learn.
For example, on Twitter,Steven Thrashersuggests adding someone named Fuck Fucker to your contacts list (if you like, you could even assign the name to someone you hatelike, say, your landlord).
Just open up the Contacts app and hit the + in the corner to add a new contact (no need to include a fake number or email addressyou can just save the word itself).If you want to be thorough, go ahead and add any variations it’s possible for you to think of, like Fucked Fucking, or whatever bespoke curses you favor that frequently run afoul of the autocorrect filter.
Of course, you’ve got the option to also use this method to include frequently autocorrected words that arent swears, from work jargon to your dogs weird name, to fake proper nouns from video games or movies.
Swear more by adding to your iPhones Text Replacement dictionary
If you want to go about the problem in a different wayand avoid cluttering up your contacts list with a bunch of NSFW fake peopleyou can also directly edit the dictionary your iPhone uses when unpacking commonly texted abbreviations.To add words to the Text Replacement dictionary, open upSettingsand swipe down toGeneral > Keyboard > Text Replacement, then hit the + in the corner to open up a page where you could add new entries, which are sorted alphabetically.
The feature is actually designed to create text replacement shortcutsso you’re able to write omw to quickly send on my way, for examplebut you’re able to also just add full words like fuck or shit or whatever you dont want your phone to fix for you.
Just turn off autocorrect
Of course, the simplest way to swear with wild abandon is toturn off Messages autocorrect feature altogetheriPhone users will also find that option underSettings > General > Keyboardbut thats a strategy not for the faint of heart (or the thick-fingered).
This post was originally published by Andy Orin in October 2016 and updated on June 29, 2021 by Joel Cunningham.
Changes included a new headline and header image, a revised lede, clearer instructions for adding to the Text Replacement dictionary, and new screenshots.
