Badges Page

[Mike Askew]

Was on the badges page and reading the text.

In exchange for showing your support, we'll return the favor by linking back to your website automagically.

Is Automagically a typo by any chance or some new fangled word we are using?

[<M/>]

Yep, it is a typo.

[~s.o.s~]

It's not a typo, it's a slang term.

[<M/>]

Oh, makes sense.

But it is debatable on whether or not she meant it to be like that.

[happygeek]

Automagically has been around for ages, I use it all the time myself and would be amazed if it was a typo.

[Mike Askew]

Case closed.

TIL: Automagically.

[Reverend Jim]

It's a slang term that irritates me to no end. I have a friend who runs a business selling marketing advice. I am frequently asked to critique her promotional materials which include text as well as video. I've finally convinced her to replace all occurrances of automagically with automatically. It may seem clever but I find it condescending ("Don't worry about how it's done. It's magic - whoo") and unprofessional.

[deceptikon]

It may seem clever but I find it condescending ("Don't worry about how it's done. It's magic - whoo") and unprofessional.

As for your reasoning, I don't completely agree:

• Condescending: That's a problem with your sensibilities, not the word choice. Changing it to "automatically" doesn't change the fact that you're glossing over how something works because you don't think it's important that the listener need to know.

• Unprofessional: Slang in general can be unprofessional, depending on the audience. However, understanding slang is a different matter. On a website you don't control who reads the content, so there could certainly be people from cultures where the slang is either completely unknown or offensive. For that one needs to be careful.

[Reverend Jim]

Sometimes slang serves a purpose. Sometimes it's just pointless. For example, the phrase "I'm really Jonesing for a cup of coffee". I'm so glad that died a quick death. I know the "automagically" thing is strictly a pet peeve. My mind automatically translates that to "you are too stupid to understand this so let's just say it's magic".

[Dani]

It wasn't intended to be a typo, and I never knew the word could bring this much thought or attention. I never thought much into it. It's just a word in my vocabulary.

[~s.o.s~]

My mind automatically translates that to "you are too stupid to understand this so let's just say it's magic"

For me it's more like "you really shouldn't care about this so let's make a joke out of it and call it magic". Of course, YMMV.

[Dani]

I'm with Sanjay. I intended it to be, "I'm not going to get into the very long, boring details for no reason explaining how it works. Let's just make a very long story short and say it's magic."