Auto-Correct Blunder Causes High School Lockdown
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Auto-correct caused "gunna" to be "gunman" (ABCNews)
The auto-correct feature on the iPhone and other smartphones can be extremely useful. Occasionally it can lead to embarrassment and mayhem, as was the case at a Georgia high school yesterday.
“Gunna be at West Hall Today” was what a student at Lanier Technical College meant to type and send, but auto-correct changed the first word to “gunman.” The message went out as: ”Gunman be at West Hall Today.”
Understandably, the recipient of the text message informed the police upon receiving the message. Authorities placed West Hall High School and an additional middle school in the area on lockdown.
After tracking down the sender and discovering the auto-correct issue, the lockdown was lifted a couple of hours later.
There are no details on what type of phone was used to send the message, but we haven’t been able to recreate the issue on an iPhone or Android 4.0 phone. Auto-correct on most smartphones adapts to the typing habits of the user, however.
The mishap comes after a school shooting at Chardon High School in Ohio, where three students were killed.
The lesson? Always proofread before you hit send.
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I have an android phone, and auto-correct drove me crazy. I disabled it.
Posted by: Thoughtyouknew | March 1, 2012, 12:14 pm 12:14 pm
Auto correct is just as bad as those who programmed it. A misspelled word, or misplaced punctuation mark, can be damaging and expensive. I’m sure the auto correct doesn’t know the difference between there, their, theirs, etal, nor how to correct a misused apostrophe. The dumbing of people is extraordinary!
Posted by: velvers | March 1, 2012, 12:22 pm 12:22 pm
I have a Droid incredible…I just tried typing that on my phone and it changed it to gunman. So it could happen!
Posted by: mycaki | March 1, 2012, 12:25 pm 12:25 pm
on a Iphone 4 gunnab will autocorrect to Gunnman. I just tried it… The writer of the text probably either thought that they could turn “going to be” into a smoosh “gunnab” and didn’t notice the problem.. Or they fat fingered the space then hit space ( accepting the autocorrect ) and thanks to the brains urge to error correct they type in be. Mostly, this story is about how important it is to check your message before hitting send.
Posted by: Ivan | March 1, 2012, 12:27 pm 12:27 pm
You clearly didn’t try too hard to recreate the issue…
In my iPhone 4, i typed “gunnab” and didnt put a space between gunna and b…it makes it gunman
Posted by: Kel | March 1, 2012, 12:28 pm 12:28 pm
I have better keyboard app loaded in my LG Vortex & it auto corrected “gunna” to “gunman”.
Posted by: Jones | March 1, 2012, 12:31 pm 12:31 pm
hahaha this was at my school that was funny
Posted by: josh | March 1, 2012, 12:34 pm 12:34 pm
You would think that the person he sent it to would double check what the sender meant to say before going to the cops for a lock down.
Posted by: Sarah | March 1, 2012, 1:03 pm 1:03 pm
tried typing it on my android and it corrected it to gunman too. haha Why would the receiver not question the text instead of going straight to police….?
Posted by: amanda | March 1, 2012, 1:05 pm 1:05 pm
I have a htc trophy and typed gunna in and it came up with gunman as an auto correct option. It could have possibly happened. I agree with a previous post why wouldnt the text have been questioned prior to calling authorities
Posted by: Ally | March 1, 2012, 1:30 pm 1:30 pm
I disagree with those asking why the text wasn’t questioned before calling the authorities – if this was actually what the person meant to say, precious time and lives could have been wasted while the receiver was checking to see what the person actually meant to send. I applaud this person for immediately telling the proper authorities so they could do their job and look into it.
Posted by: Kris | March 1, 2012, 1:51 pm 1:51 pm
I have an android and I downloaded the “iphone input” app from market and recreated the same autocorrect instance.
Posted by: aldo | March 1, 2012, 2:02 pm 2:02 pm
It happens to me all the time…I have droid and every time I try to write you it puts tippy..and when I type me it puts an…when I type it..it puts out…so yea that auto correct can be a pain but before people call the authorities on someone they really should be certain it wasn’t a typo first.
Posted by: Stacey | March 1, 2012, 2:41 pm 2:41 pm
perhaps if we taught our children how to spell properly there wouldn’t have been an auto correct issue. “Going to” instead of “Gunna”
Posted by: Jennifer Ayers | March 1, 2012, 2:53 pm 2:53 pm
There is a solution for that. Learn how to use your smartphone and disable the auto-correct feature, be smarter than your smart-phone.
Posted by: Geek1001 | March 1, 2012, 3:43 pm 3:43 pm
I just think they are plain stupid its spelled gonna not gunna in the first place
Posted by: John | March 1, 2012, 5:20 pm 5:20 pm
What kind of buffoon uses a non-word like “gunna”.
Posted by: glacia | March 1, 2012, 9:46 pm 9:46 pm
Sadly, the funniest part is knowing that it’s obviously pushing the envelope to the extreme in expecting someone to just type “going to.”
Posted by: Sherri | March 2, 2012, 2:02 am 2:02 am
I wonder what phones these fools were using who couldn’t recreate the auto-correct error. My LG Optimus corrected “gunna” to “gunman.” Anyway, it’s “gonna,” not “gunna!” Idiot.
Posted by: Arf40 | March 2, 2012, 11:35 am 11:35 am
Actually people ‘gonna’ is also not a word.
Posted by: glacia | March 2, 2012, 1:28 pm 1:28 pm
Type “gumna meet you at” and it autocorrects to gunman meet you at. And since the m and the n keys on the keyboard are next to each other on those small keyboards, its easy to thumb an m instead of another n in gunna. I used my android and it autocorrected the same way as in the article.
Posted by: rzdave | March 2, 2012, 3:04 pm 3:04 pm