I dumped Apple’s word list

(helgesver.re)

117 points | by speckx 2 hours ago ago

57 comments

  • nonethewiser an hour ago

    There is a lot more interesting stuff to mine from this.

    The phrase blocklist for the Chinese lanaguge is a lot larger (surprise, surprise). It about 281 KB for Simplified Chinese, 325 KB for Traditional and 160 KB for Cantonese, against 28 KB for English.

    apparently there are `shouldShowTaiwanFlagEmoji()` and `deviceIsChinese()` functions as well but that doesn't have anything to do with this database.

  • rappatic an hour ago

    > I dumped Apple's word list

    Claude dumped Apple's word list, and obviously wrote the article too.

    • alex43578 28 minutes ago

      You didn't write this comment, your keyboard did.

    • kulahan 43 minutes ago

      The calculator did the math!

  • verytrivial an hour ago

    I have a MacBook that was meant to replace my aging Windows and Linux laptops. This article is a microcosm of why I have just stopped using it. An endless stream of mollycoddling, obfuscation and "It's for your own good, child" trash. I can't even bring myself to sell it because I'm ashamed of it.

    • lrvick an hour ago

      Install Linux on it and carve a big X over the apple logo

      • awesome_dude an hour ago

        I have Asahi on my mac book mini - it turns a nice piece of hardware into a wonderful computer to use :)

    • watwut an hour ago

      But ... the point of that vulgar words list is to STOP autocorrecting them when it detects intentional use.

      • yborg an hour ago

        The parent post is a microcosm of why he's actually not using the Macbook - he doesn't understand how it works.

      • mahboi an hour ago

        Also you can disable autocorrect. I don't even have this list.

  • 30 minutes ago
    [deleted]
  • thinkingemote an hour ago

    Would it be possible to get versions of the files to see when certain words got added and I imagine certain words got removed? Could be interesting to correlate certain events, personalities, trends, memes, controversies etc with the changes.

    It was added in 23 so there's potentially 3 years of updates.

    Edits: This comment shows differences between 15.6 and 26.2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50358223

  • jmbwell an hour ago

    This is about autocorrect learning words you like to use that it should consider potentially intentional use of words it might otherwise think you typed accidentally

    It’s adaptive non-censorship

  • Retr0id an hour ago

    I'd appreciate if someone could dump the iOS "adult websites" list (which are blocked by default in the UK unless you submit government ID etc.)

    • ilumanty an hour ago

      Wait, are you saying iOS UK Edition blocks adult websites on the OS level?

      • Retr0id an hour ago

        Yup! Any webkit web view, and iOS doesn't allow any non-webkit web views (in this jurisdiction at least)

    • flanz_10 an hour ago

      It's not a list, it's a series of ML classifications. Basically, you've got "child mode" locked on. The solution is to not use a UK apple id.

      • Retr0id an hour ago

        An ML classifier running against the DNS name? Really?

  • nonethewiser an hour ago

    Apple's built-in dictionary flags on my Mac: 26.2, which is newer than the article's 15.6. Apple has changed several things since:

      ┌───────────────┬────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
      │               │ Article (15.6) │             My Mac   (26.2)              │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ Total entries │ 199,019        │ 199,940                                  │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ Vulgar        │ 1,050          │ 850                                      │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ Offensive     │ 663            │ 727                                      │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ Sensitive     │ 2,558          │ 2,748                                    │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ Oedipus       │ vulgar         │ sensitive (sex topic)                    │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ cooties       │ vulgar         │ clean                                    │
      ├───────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
      │ Biden         │ clean          │ now tagged politics topic, still no tier │
      └───────────────┴────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘
    
      These are unchanged:
      - Trump is still sensitive with the politics topic. The lowercase card-game word "trump" is still
        clean.
      - Obama, Putin, Vance and Harris have no tier. Musk still isn't in the dictionary.
      - Tom and Mick are still offensive, and pee, poo, niggle, underling, blacklist and Isis are still
        sensitive.
      - idiot is still sensitive, and now also has the catch-all "sensitive context" topic.
    
      Words in the capitalized sensitive list that the article doesn't mention include Saddam, Grindr,
      Oedipus/Oedipal, TERF and Viagra. Trump is still the only living politician among them.
  • swiftcoder an hour ago

    The vulgar db doesn't exist at all (nor the ~/Library/Keyboards directory) on my Tahoe install. Weird

  • _false an hour ago

    if autocorrect is disabled this will be empty

  • swid an hour ago

    This is interesting… does anyone have data in theirs? It also feels like something they could have put on an intern and it didn’t really gain any traction. Each app would need to “tell” the OS who the receiver is, and the article indicates there is no API to do that. Maybe it just knows, but how could that be?

  • deprave an hour ago

    Why does Apple need to keep these in a separate database? I thought they removed filtering, maybe subject to user age or parental controls, not added a whole mechanism to manage it.

  • jooize an hour ago

    giving fixing ducking

    How do I make iOS let me swipe “fucking” everywhere? fucking

    fucking fucking fucking!! After typing it manually two or three times it then swipe completes in this particular text field in this app. I've heard about adding a contact with the words, but that is ridiculous, so I have held out hoping Apple will eventually come to their senses, like a fool.

    This doesn't make “fuck” swipeable either… unless I type it once, and keep it in the text field!

  • whycome an hour ago

    Does this play a role in why the keyboard on iOS is so fucking enraging? It used to be amazing.

    • MBCook 18 minutes ago

      No. That is a separate INCREDIBLY OBNOXIOUS issue.

      Can’t believe they don’t fix it year after year.

      • busymom0 3 minutes ago

        When the first iOS 27 beta came out, it was actually really good for me. But later betas and now the public release ruined it once again. It's unbelievable how bad it is.

  • baggachipz an hour ago

    > Every other real person on that list is dead, and nearly all of them are Nazi officials, dictators or terrorists. Then there's Trump

    If the shoe fits....

    • walthamstow 30 minutes ago

      Surely the first HN user to be named after a Brummie drag queen

    • Y_Y an hour ago

      you must acquit

  • rdtsc an hour ago

        Putin clean
        Stalin clean
    
    Somehow Mao is there. But Pol Pot isn't. I would have guessed they'd go by the number of victims. But I guess "Uncle Joe" is clean and uncontroversial, so someone was confused about history. But yeah, this has that "Cupertino interns typed this list" feel to it.
  • anonymous908213 an hour ago

    Somebody please kill Claude I'm so fucking tired of reading this grating writing. Technology was a mistake

    • ixtli 9 minutes ago

      I feel the same way.

    • hugodan an hour ago

      If you find something funnier than Oedipus, I want to hear about it.

      • smcin 30 minutes ago

        'Bacchus', 'Hooters' are also in the lists. 'Pornhub' but not 'OnlyFans'/'OF'.

        I'm reminded of how Cartman on South Park used to sneak in terms like 'catamite'. Steganographized archaic terms.

  • CalChris an hour ago

    Right on Trump and wrong on Putin.

  • ajjenkins an hour ago

    Why would “trump” be considered an offensive term? My understanding of the database is to prevent you from accidentally typing offensive or words being autocorrected to something offensive. Like if I misspell “helper” I don’t want that to be autocorrected to “hitler”.

    It’s surprising to me that “trump” would get the same classification. Given that he’s the current president of the US, I’m sure people intentionally type his name all the time. I don’t want my keyboard to steer me away from writing out “trump”. And typos autocorrecting to Trump don’t seem like a big deal either. Would anyone be offended by the text “don’t forget to bring your Trump to band practice”?

    • monster_truck an hour ago

      They're really passionate about Euchre (in a negative way) over in Cupertino

    • freehorse 25 minutes ago

      > Would anyone be offended by the text “don’t forget to bring your Trump to band practice”?

      Trump could be offended. It is obviously there to avoid offending Trump.

      And it is not considered "offensive" but "sensitive".

    • an hour ago
      [deleted]
    • ixtli an hour ago

      just read the article and trump (unless its the word for fart as in the uk) is marked as sensitive.

    • edf13 an hour ago

      Here in the UK it means fart

    • n2d4 an hour ago

      Trump is marked as sensitive, not offensive; along with words like "God", "Jews", and "gun"

    • Larrikin an hour ago

      A reasonable explanation is proposed in the article

  • ixtli an hour ago

    Incredible that 'conservatards' is in there but not 'libtard'. I thought the right was always being censored!

    • nancyminusone 41 minutes ago

      I don't think I have ever seen 'conservatards' before today

      • freehorse 23 minutes ago

        First time I heard that word too. Which proves the point /s

        People are reading too much into this.

        • ixtli 10 minutes ago

          I commented this here for this precise reason. `Libtard` is definitely a word people on the internet use but the other one ive literally never seen before. Someone went out of their way to add one and not the other. I agree though that, ehem, rightoids are supremely sensitive tho.

    • bluebarbet 39 minutes ago

      Just in time for America's ongoing discovery that "liberal" and "conservative" are in fact quite similar ideologies. New insults are called for. I propose "progtard" and "reactard".

      • what 2 minutes ago

        Progcels be seething over reactchads.

    • MBCook an hour ago

      That is odd. Hadn’t occurred to me.

    • ixtli 11 minutes ago

      I think downvoters may not have realized i was being sarcastic with my second sentence.

    • nonethewiser an hour ago

      libtard and conservatard are both there on when I tested on my Mac 26.2

    • warkdarrior an hour ago

      The author must have bought MAGA edition of the MBP. The AOC edition has 'libtard' in it, surely.

    • CodeWriter23 an hour ago

      It's the exception that proves the rule