When I first read that Apple devices autocorrect the pejorative lardass to the name Kardashian I, like many, thought, “Oh, man, some smartass at Apple is going to get so fired over this.”
Finger-waggers on social media were definitely seeing the Kardashians as the butt of a crude joke, too.
However, if you look closely at the two words it’s quite clear that this suspected insult is almost certainly a case of software doing what software does: Anyone typing the letters l-a-r-d-a-s is much more likely to have meant K-a-r-d-a-s on their way to Kardashian than l-a-r-d-a-s on their way to lardass, what with the ubiquity of the Kardashians and relative obscurity of the putdown lardass. Heck, the initial letters l and k are even right next to each other on the keyboard, offering Apple’s autocorrect software yet another clue of typographical error.
So assuming that Kardashian was intended instead of lardass is exactly what autocorrect is supposed to do.
That it generates snickers in some quarters is merely a bonus.
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