"Rapists???"

That was the strange one-word SMS message I got from a friend this afternoon.

A few minutes before that, I had sent him a geek question about some PHP scripts. That "Rapists???" message sure wasn't the reply I expected. I was about to send a "Huh?" when the leftover text from my last message made me realize that it was my fault after all. I didn't ask about PHP scripts. I asked about PHP rapists... or at least my phone did.

Ever since I got my first cell phone years ago, I've been using T9 predictive text, which uses a dictionary to let you input text with less key presses. For example, if you want to say "chicken," instead straining your thumb to press 22244444222553366 (I feel tired just thinking about it), you can simply press 2442536--one key for each letter. So convenient, right? And if multiple words share the same key combination, T9 picks the most commonly used one for you... so smart.

Some of my friends find it strange that I always text in unabbreviated English, but I don't care. I refuse to learn Txtardese because I absolutely hate it. Plus I lack thumb dexterity, and T9 is pretty much the only thing that allows me to text slightly faster than your grandmother.

Back to my creepy text message.... 727478 spells "script," so adding a 7 should give me "scripts," right? Right? Nope. T9 smartly predicted that "rapists" is the word I wanted. Thanks a lot, T9.

Seriously, is "rapists" really a more commonly used word than "scripts"? The world is such a horrible place.