The iPhone, a draconian censor.

A while ago, iPhone users figured out a couple of little hacks to add words that would get you fined by the FCC to the iPhone's auto-correct dictionary.

Unhappy that she had to put in so much work to get their iPhone to speak like a Senator, Erica Sadun at ars technica did a little poking around and has discovered a much better training method for the little phucker. 

Lifehacker summarizes thusly:

The iPhone's custom auto-correct dictionary (located at /private/var/mobile/Library/Keyboard/dynamic-text.dat) doesn't update itself when you're using, say, Notes. Using Mobile Safari's Google search box, however, seems to instantly refresh the file.

Erica explains...

Well, clearly, not every iPhone application can "learn" words. Notes seems to be brain-dead in that regard. At the same time, using Safari's Google text entry field worked every time, expanding the database and adding new items to my keyboard dictionary. 

This isn't the way you'd expect the iPhone to work. You'd imagine that the keyboard learning algorithm would apply to all text no matter where you enter it, but apparently not. Hopefully this little trick will help you out when you want to add words that you don't want autocorrected.

I'm so relieved. Britney Spears can be more direct when texting ideas for future song titles, and Kevin Garnett can finally use the iPhone as he's always wanted. No more ABC censor -- the iPhone has upgraded to HBO!

For more discussion and even a video explanation, visit iPhone Hacks.

[Photo swiped from the ars technica article.]