I had a friend complain to me the other day (the way that all folks who have friends working at Microsoft tend to do) about Clippy and how to turn him off in Office 2003.

Now I have mentioned before that Clippy is off in the default install and has been for a few versions now.

But I figure if even Charles Simonyi can be confused by it then I suppose anyone can. :-)

So I remembered an old trick someone had mentioned to me and asked my friend "Have you tried being rude to him?"

"What do you mean?" she asked me. "How can you be rude to a talking paper clip?"

"Well," I suggested, "try venting your anger at him. Tell him in a few concise words how you feel about him."

Many of you may know this trick. I was being a bit vague intentionally, but she actually came up with the same language for her complaint that many others have:

After telling Clippy this, the first item on the list explains how to change the Office Assistant,and the second item explains how to hide or show it.

Now this is obviously not the only way to find the message, but I find three different language issues amusing here:

  • An amazing number of people use this exact phrase;
  • There are reportedly many other expressions of negative Clippy feelings that will have the same effect on search in help;
  • There are disadvantages to a formal education that make this method of finding a solution less obvious.

I wonder how sophisticated the "unhappy user" detection is here in language. And whether it has been appropriately localized.

Any other language versions of Office users have any data they'd like to share? I'd love to know if Clippy can detect people being unhappy with him beyond his English users....

 

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