{"id":51956,"date":"2026-05-19T13:35:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51956"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:05:12","slug":"how-fake-contacts-can-fix-dictations-proper-noun-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/19\/how-fake-contacts-can-fix-dictations-proper-noun-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"How Fake Contacts Can Fix Dictation&rsquo;s Proper Noun Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tidbits.com\/2026\/05\/15\/tipbits-how-fake-contacts-can-fix-dictations-proper-noun-problems\/\">Adam Engst<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/tidbits.com\/2026\/05\/15\/tipbits-how-fake-contacts-can-fix-dictations-proper-noun-problems\/\">\n<p>Apple doesn&rsquo;t provide a user-editable list where you can add special words, but there is a back-door way to train Dictation&mdash;on all your Apple devices&mdash;to work more the way you prefer: through the Contacts app.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the number of words in the name or phrase, I put them all in the First Name field, with the hear-no-evil monkey &#x1F649; emoji in the Last Name field. That way, these spurious contacts sort to the very bottom of Contacts and don&rsquo;t clutter the display. I also add them to a Proper Noun-Contacts list (mentally removing the &ldquo;u&rdquo; amuses me).<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Dictation picks up some of these entries quickly, such that you don&rsquo;t have to do anything more. However, in other cases, it requires more training.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Inserting a zero-width space in the middle of the word did indeed prevent Dictation from recognizing it. Unfortunately, the zero-width space also gets in the way of searching on the full name, so it&rsquo;s best to put it as far back in the word as possible.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Engst: Apple doesn&rsquo;t provide a user-editable list where you can add special words, but there is a back-door way to train Dictation&mdash;on all your Apple devices&mdash;to work more the way you prefer: through the Contacts app. [&#8230;] Regardless of the number of words in the name or phrase, I put them all in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-05-19T17:35:31Z","apple_news_api_id":"6a14f770-a750-4777-ac1e-1c0d2aa9dadf","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-05-19T17:35:32Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AahT3cKdQR3esHhwNKqna3w","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[176,812,31,2741,30,2742,258],"class_list":["post-51956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-contacts","tag-dictation","tag-ios","tag-ios-26","tag-mac","tag-macos-tahoe-26","tag-unicode"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51957,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51956\/revisions\/51957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}