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Possessed cell phone

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:11 am
by sc_curtis
This is pretty off-topic, so read at your own risk....

Its late, I'm bored. My T9 predictive text thinks I want to type the word "gerchanovsky" when I begin with "ger". I have never used that word in my phone, and a quick google search yields little answers as to why this happens. There have been some random people posting in random fora about this specific phenomena, and the only theory I have found involves a programmer putting his name into Motorola phones (Alex Gerchanovsky) as a possible Easter Egg. Alex Gerchanovsky is certainly found on the internet, and it seems he is a computer programmer of some kind, but there is nothing linking him to any phone company. There is also a less-than-favorable definition of this word on the urban dictionary site. Perhaps it is related in some way as an inside joke with some phone programmer nerds?

Since this is the only forum I ever post on or read, I thought I would randomly throw it out there. I was curious if this has happened to anyone else here. Anyways, since there seems to be an insane amount of random trivial information found here on TubeNet in futile attempts to unravel the mysteries of the universe, I would throw this out to see if anyone has:
1. Experienced this particular word and was curious
2. Experienced this with another word of equal randomness
3. Any insight as to why this is there
4. Any conspiracy theories as to why it is there
5. Any insight at all about how predictive text words are chosen and programmed

Seriously, how many other words can you think of that begin with "ger" that would be more common than this?
Seriously?!?!?


I told you it was late, and I was bored...

Re: Possessed cell phone

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 3:22 am
by Nick Pierce
germ
germany
gertrude



That's all I've got. Sorry.

Re: Possessed cell phone

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:32 am
by eupher61
germinate (and other forms)
geriatric
gerrymander

Re: Possessed cell phone

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:44 am
by Rick F
Doesn't seem very 'germane' to offer Gerchanovsky as a possibility. :roll:

Re: Possessed cell phone

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:36 pm
by MartyNeilan
HOW do you pronounce his name? :oops:

Re: Possessed cell phone

Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:11 pm
by justinbarleben
WTF?!?!?! I just tried it too. When I first type it in, I get "her". However, when I scroll through to the "ger" combo, I get "Gerchanovsky"! What type of cell phone do you have? I have a Motorola RAZR, which uses ITAP instead of T9. Does it vary from program to program, or do all the predictive text programs have this quirk?