Cupertino effect

English edit

Etymology edit

Named for the fact that some older computer spellcheckers did not have knowledge of the word cooperation, and when a user typed it in the document, the spellchecker automatically replaced it not with co-operation, but with Cupertino, a name of a city in northern California and headquarters of Apple, Inc.^[1]

Noun edit

Examples
cooperation → Cupertino (i)dentified → denitrified infurmation → infuriation Freud → fraud sua sponte → sea sponge

Cupertino effect

(computing, software) The replacement, by a spell checker, of words that it interprets as being misspelled, by words which are still incorrect in context.
- 2015, Arhlene A. Flowers, Global Writing for Public Relations‎^[2], Routledge, →ISBN:
  Although computer dictionaries have improved, the Cupertino effect still creates havoc.

Derived terms edit

Cupertino

References edit

^ Ben Zimmer (2007 November 1) “When Spellcheckers Attack: Perils of the Cupertino Effect”, in OUPBlog‎^[1]