What Are Words For?

I’m old enough to remember a time when people actually spelled everything out. Single-letter words like “r” or “u”… it’s a pet peeve of mine. But I can see why you might want to do that on a phone.

Yesterday, after getting re-blonded, I was making my next haircut appointment and entering it into my phone. I typed in “HA” and the phone conveniently chose what it felt was the most likely word I was trying to type: “HAGGIS.” Yes, somewhere in the halls of Motorola, a programmer had sat before a screen and thought...

What would be the most likely word a person would be typing if they had already typed “HA?” “Happy?” “Hair?” “Hat?” “Harbor?” “Hackneyed?” “Haphazard?” “Halloween?” “Harmony?” “Haberdasher?” “Hank?” “Harold?” “Hash?” “Have?” “Ham?” “Hack?” “Had?” “Habitation?” “Hall?” “Half?” No, they would probably mean “Haggis.”