Cupertino effect

English Etymology Named for the fact that some older computer spellcheckers did not include the form en cooperation and would automatically replace it not with en co-operation, but with en Cupertino, a name of a city in northern California and headquarters of Apple Inc.When Spellcheckers Attack: Perils of the Cupertino Effect 2007-11-01 Ben Zimmer Ben Zimmer OUPBlog https://blog.oup.com/2007/11/spellchecker/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260902175307/https://blog.oup.com/2007/11/spellchecker/ 2 September 2026 Noun 1. Unnecessary corrections en cooperation → en Cupertino en Freud → en fraud en sua sponte → en sea sponge 2. Miscorrections en identified (i)dentified → en denitrified en information infurmation → en infuriation en definate → en defiant ? en computing software originally The replacement, by a spell checker, of words that are real (such as proper nouns or alternate spellings), but missing from its internal dictionary, with words that are starkly incorrect in context. en 2015 Arhlene A. Flowers Global Writing for Public Relations Routledge 9781317683865 https://books.google.com/books?id=VcQ0CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT351&dq=%22Cupertino+effect%22&hl=&cd=4&source=gbs_api#v=onepage&q=%22Cupertino%20effect%22&f=false Although computer dictionaries have improved, the Cupertino effect still creates havoc. en by extension The failure of spell checkers to replace incorrectly spelled words with the actually intended words, resulting in miscorrections. Derived terms en Cupertino References Further reading en terms derived from toponyms