My Conflict With a Dictator

Annamaria on Monday

 

If, based on the title of this post, you are expecting another of my treatises on the decay of American democracy, you might be disappointed. More likely, you are going to be relieved that I am taking up a completely different topic.

 

Here’s the story: when my battle with pain began in April 2021, my blog me and good friend Stan trollop suggested that I dictate rather than type.   I was certain that dictating the first draft of fiction would be impossible for me. But I thought I could find ways to dictate emails and maybe even blog posts. Since then, I have been trying to use the Dictation app as much as possible. It has it’s convenient moment, but also it behaves in such a way that it requires quite a bit of computer time just to get things right. The app and I have learned to get along better as time goes on, but not entirely.

 

This foregoing paragraph is a prime example.  I put it in italics because it contains many mistakes.  I carefully pronounced the words, but the app, as usual, has a mind of its own.

 

The thing I hate most about the dictation feature is that it seems to want to sneak in mistakes.  As I dictate, I watch as the words appear on the screen and charge ahead if the app has getting things right.  But when I go back to proofread, I find that it has changed its mind after the fact and replaced something that was, at first, correct with something that is wrong.  Prime example from the above: When I said “Stan Trollip,” it wrote Stanley Trollip. Okay I thought, if you want to be more formal, have it your way. Then, when I went back to read the whole paragraph, I found it as you see it above. It makes me want to scream.

 

Dictating is hell on wheels when it comes to homophones. For instance, when I was trying to get it to type the word “piece,” it typed “peace.”  Silly me, I thought if the word was preceded by “a” the app would get it right.  When it didn’t, I tried spelling out the word I wanted.  I persisted, repeating the word. I confess that I yelled it a couple of times.  Here verbatim is what the app produced:

 

Peace peace PRECE peace lowercase PIECE peace new paragraph

 

GRRRR!!

 

For first drafts of fiction, I have been sitting down with pen and paper and then reading what I wrote into the computer.  The result still requires an enormous amount of correction.

 

Sometimes, I have to admit, the app is amusing.  For instance…

 

My character said, “She is benign.”

The app typed, “She is B9.”

 

I described a piece of furniture as “expansive.”

The app called it “expensive.”

My character filled a soup bowl.

In the app’s version, the character filled a Super Bowl.

  

My character put down his spoon

The app’s character put down his “phone,” a pretty amazing trick for a man at lunch in 1692.

 

My characters had a “tale to tell”

The app imagined them “tail to tail”

 

I think I’ll just leave you with that thought!