I’ve typed a lot of bridge terms into a lot of devices over the years.

This includes a collection of smartphones and several laptops, used to write emails, instant messages, articles, pitches and conversations that were all about bridge.

Other than a few spelling mistakes I can take the blame for myself, autocorrect is always there to throw a possible spanner into the wheels of decent spelling.

Basically, it’s what makes you type the word “duck” when that’s not the four-letter word you were looking for. Dictionaries (especially smartphone dictionaries) take a while to teach and sometimes still get it wrong.

Here’s what autocorrect has done to bridge so far.

            1. Did you mean “contact bridge”?

With a phone right out of the box on factory settings, the terms “contract” and “bridge” in combination seemingly don’t make any sense to the phone – or a search engine. Eventually, you end up with a couple of variations on the search term that don’t mean cards.

Can you imagine if what we played was called contact bridge instead of contract – and how would it work?

            2. Did you mean “bridge contract”?

I’ve had a few search engines step in to ask whether I mean “bridge contract” instead.

This means that I inevitably get confronted with a list of engineering news, rather than anything useful relating to the game.

If this happens to you, add quotes (“”) to the search term to ensure an exact search to the letter.

            3. Did you mean “rough”?

Phones don’t seem to appreciate the term “ruff” – or its derivative “ruffing.” 

When reliant on the phone’s built-in dictionary before it’s been taught anything, it insists that the bridge move refers to something a little, well, rougher in nature.

It’s great to laugh at words like “grand slam”, but probably not polite to make the same mistake as the above in a text message. No, Autocorrect, we don’t mean rough.

            4. Did you mean “BBC”?

If you’re one of our regular users, you might want to use your smartphone dictionary to type out the acronym “BBO” – and then click on Save to Dictionary or Remember.

This can stop BBO from becoming any number of other three-letter combinations, including BBC. (Depending on which sites you frequent other than here, that’s the nicest autocorrect alternative!)

            5. Did you mean “Stay, man”?

Phones don’t have as much of a problem with poker or board-game terms – and some surprising ones (even common nouns like Monopoly) are built into the dictionary as regular old words people are expecting to type.
Next, try your Autocorrect dictionary out for bridge conventions.

See how long it takes to turn Stayman into something else – or Puppet Stayman into something obscene.

Again, add these common bridge terms to your phone dictionary when typing them in the first time if you want to avoid typos at the table.