Predictive text and plurals

[swill453]

I use Google keyboard on my Android phone. The predictive text is a really useful feature, but sometimes pluralizing words annoys me a little so I was wondering if there's a better way of doing it.

Assume I'm typing a random noun, and it can be pluralized with a single 's', and I actually want to type this plural. Say the predictive text guesses what I want to type, and offers the correct word in the singular. Sometimes it will also offer the plural of the word, sometimes not. This will depend on what word it is, the context, and my typing history.

Let's say this time it doesn't offer the plural, only the singular plus two other words I'm not interested in.

I select the singular noun, and now I simply want to add an 's' on the end. However if I type an 's', it assumes I want to start a new word and "helpfully" inserts a space before it.

The quickest way I've found of actually getting what I want is to type a space, followed by a backspace, followed by the 's'. i.e. 3 keystrokes.

Does anyone know of any technique to pluralize the word with an 's' with fewer keystrokes?

Scott.

[Itsallaguess]

Does anyone know of any technique to pluralize the word with an 's' with fewer keystrokes?

Does it make any difference if you ensure that both the singular and plural words are in the auto-correct dictionary?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[swill453]

Does it make any difference if you ensure that both the singular and plural words are in the auto-correct dictionary?

Not really something I can control, as I'm talking about random words that I can't predict in advance.

Scott.

[tjh290633]

Having got the singular form, I then backspace and am usually offered the plural.

TJH

[swill453]

Having got the singular form, I then backspace and am usually offered the plural.

That's actually the sort of tip I was looking for, and I suppose quite obvious when you think about it. It didn't work for all the words I tried, but did for enough of them to make it worth trying.

At worst I'd have to retype the last letter plus the 's', which would make it no more keystrokes than space-backspace-'s'.

Scott.

[Stompa]

Once the singular version of the word appears, do a long press on it which will display a larger list of alternatives hopefully including the plural. Mind you, I'm not sure that would be quicker than the previous suggestion.

[swill453]

Once the singular version of the word appears, do a long press on it which will display a larger list of alternatives hopefully including the plural.

That doesn't work for me. Long-pressing a suggestion only gives me the option of dragging it to a wastebasket, presumably then removing it from the dictionary.

Scott.

[Stompa]

Once the singular version of the word appears, do a long press on it which will display a larger list of alternatives hopefully including the plural.

That doesn't work for me. Long-pressing a suggestion only gives me the option of dragging it to a wastebasket, presumably then removing it from the dictionary.

Ah, it looks like it's probably been removed in newer versions. It used to work:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/pr ... -keyboard/