Apple’s swear box

I recently noticed when using my iPhone that Apple have some sort of a list of swear words in their spelling dictionary.

For those unfamiliar with the way text input works on the iPhone, if you make a typo (or enter a word not in the dictionary) then one of these happens:

• If the word you typed is similar to a dictionary word, the iPhone autocorrects it to the dictionary word
• If the word you typed is not similar to a dictionary word (or you reject the suggested autocorrect) then it just gets underlined in red

I know there’s a “swearword list” because if I type a word very similar to a swearword (e.g. fick instead of fuck) then no autocorrect suggestion is made.  This would suggest that the dictionary doesn’t include the word fuck.

But when you directly type fuck, it is not underlined in red – so it exists in the dictionary! We conclude that there’s a special list of words regarded as swearwords which the phone will accept when given directly, but will not autocorrect anything else to.

I would love to see this list, and to find out what Steve Jobs regards as rude and inappropriate 😀