EVER sent an e-mail and regretted it? Your computer will soon be able to warn
you if your words are likely to offend. E-mail 鈥渇laming鈥� is rife, but not all
of it is intentional. 鈥淏rief e-mails can be a bit more terse than intended,鈥�
says Helen Petrie, a psychologist at Hertfordshire University in Hatfield. 鈥淚t鈥檚
easy to be rude without meaning it.鈥�
This inspired Qualcomm of San Diego, California鈥攎aker of the Eudora
e-mail package鈥攖o write software that seeks out wounding words. 鈥淲e鈥檙e
trying to stop people making a mistake they might regret,鈥� explains technology
chief Rob Chandhok.
Qualcomm was aided by language expert David Kaufer, who studied the
alt.flames Usenet group, which has turned insults into an art form. 鈥淚 read 400
flames and coded them for patterns in phraseology,鈥� he says. These codes let the
software rank words and phrases that might cause offence. 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 look just
look for profane words, because I can say: `Oh shit, I鈥檓 an idiot,鈥� and it鈥檚 not
a flame at all,鈥� says Kaufer. The new Moodwatch software is now part of Eudora.
It gives e-mails an offensiveness score by displaying between one and three
chilli peppers on the screen, alongside an acerbic comment.
Advertisement