E-mailing a friend recently, I addressed him as “bubbe,” my Yiddish term of endearment of choice. I was slightly taken aback when Outlook would not allow me to send the e-mail without verifying the word. “Huh? Why on earth is ‘bubbe’ coming up on spell check?,” I puzzled.

And then I realized: I’m using a relatively new laptop. And like the keyboard on my still relatively new iPhone, it hasn’t yet learned to speak Deb Arnold.

“Bubbe” was added to the Word/Outlook dictionary on my trusty Dell years ago (four, to be exact, almost to the day). But on my still-mostly-a-stranger, we-got-married-without-knowing-each-other HP, my own idiosyncratic computer dictionary is yet to be created.

Most, if not all, of you, gentle readers, have also taught your phone and/or computer your own lingo: acronyms (corporate or otherwise), words from other languages, pet names of your own.

My takeaway? A little-touted benefit of new tech toys is the reminder that what’s clear and intuitive to us may be completely foreign to others.

Back to my mantra and the question you should always ask yourself before you set out to communicate: Who Do You Think You’re Talking to? Bubbe, let me tell you, it’s a great question.

What are some of your favorite words in the You dictionary (phone or computer)? I’d love to know.

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