Google Docs: Did You Mean CUNT or CUNY?

This morning, I was editing a file in Google Docs, when I was asked by
the Google Spellcheck — if I meant “CUNT” instead of “CUNY” — and that
was quite a wild wake up call at 4:30am.


“CUNY” means “City University of New York” and “CUNT” means, well, you can look it up if you don’t know.  We don’t care if “CUNT” has some other, greater, meaning.  We know what it means and it shouldn’t be in the Google Spellcheck.

We did not previously add “CUNT” to our Google Docs Spellcheck dictionary, and while we often wonder about the meaning of words, we cannot decipher why CUNT is included by default as a “correctable” word in Google Docs.

We hope Google will do the right thing and purge any and all nasty words from its default dictionary — if people choose to add the naughty bits to their spellcheck, that’s fine — but we don’t need Google helping to add crassness to the world in the suggestion of CUNT for CUNY.

You should see our Google Spellcheck for this article:

  Yes, it’s filled with CUNT corrections!

About David W. Boles

Publishes 14 blogs through BolesBlogs.com. Teaches via BolesUniversity.com. Publishes through BolesBooks.com. Lives at Boles.com.
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7 Responses to Google Docs: Did You Mean CUNT or CUNY?

  1. Gordon Davidescu says:

    Wow. That’s brutal, David. Hard to believe that Google would have such vulgar words in their vocabulary.

  2. kathakali.chatterjee says:

    Ha!
    Interesting way to start a day, that too at 4:30 am., really sorry for you.
    Uffff.
    ‘Nuff said, I guess.

  3. It was quite a slap in the face!

  4. It was bizarre. Not quite awake yet wondering if what I was seeing was what I was seeing…

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