Cupertino effect en · NOUN
Etymology
Named for the fact that some older computer spellcheckers did not include the form cooperation and would automatically replace it not with co-operation, but with Cupertino, a name of a city in northern California and headquarters of Apple Inc.
Meanings
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(qualifier:originally) The replacement, by a spell checker, of words that are real (such as proper nouns or alternate spellings), but missing from its internal dictionary, with words that are starkly incorrect in context.
Although computer dictionaries have improved, the Cupertino effect still creates havoc.
2015, Arhlene A. Flowers, Global Writing for Public Relations, Routledge, →ISBN:
- (broadly) The failure of spell checkers to replace incorrectly spelled words with the actually intended words, resulting in miscorrections.