The Mystery of 'Da Jawn'

Some people are very sneaky and mischievous.

Some people are very skilled at playing practical jokes.

When these forces combine, the result is a little like what happened to me... three times.

So, on your average day home from school, I was typing an essay for my english class, all wrapped up in my A.P. world of syntax, diction, and rhetorical tools. Being the distraction-prone teenager that I am, I shifted my focus to Facebook after typing my first paragraph. When I finally bore the self-control whip on my own hide and came back to my essay, the word 'da jawn' had mysteriously appeared in the second-to-last sentence in place of the word 'it'.

Mildly confused, I changed it back and thought to myself (quite fatuously, I admit), "I don't remember typing that...". A few sentences later, I again used the word 'it', only to be greeted with the infamous yellow lightning bolt signifier of Microsoft Word's Autocorrect in action:

Sure enough, 'it' magically transformed to 'da jawn' before my eyes.

So I went to Autocorrect settings to delete the 'autocorrection' of 'the' to 'da jawn', and thought to myself, "what a clever prank!" But frustratingly enough, it baffled me to think about who could have done it, since I didn't (and still don't) remember anyone touching my computer in the recent past.

I eventually finished my essay and moved on with my life, sure that I had conquered all of the Autocorrect struggles that would confront me in life.

I was wrong.

Two weeks later, I was again typing a six page English essay when suddenly, the lightning bolt attacked and the word 'something' transmogrified into, sure enough, 'da jawn'. Perplexed and slightly frustrated, I changed the autocorrect settings, again puzzled by 1. who on Earth had access to my computer and 2. which of my friends would be clever enough to do that. The only place I recalled leaving my computer unoccupied was at Science Olympiad, but when I told my fellow Olympians the story, they were all surprised and highly entertained, so I concluded that it couldn't have been any of them. Again hoping that I'd beat the genius of this jokester by fixing the Autocorrect settings, I moved on.

Around three weeks ago, 'da jawn' entered my life yet again.

I was typing a History essay this time, when I used the forbidden-by-my-English-teacher word 'thing'. Again distracted, I clicked onto another page (Formspring, this time), and when I came back, much to my surprise, 'da jawn' had ousted 'thing' and planted itself on my computer screen with the dramatic accentuation of a yellow lightning bolt. Utterly confounded at this point, I deleted 'da jawn' and, remembering the plea of my English teacher to "never, ever, ever use the word 'thing' in an essay", replaced it with some diction that sounded slightly more highly educated. In all of my confusion, the idea of fixing Autocorrect settings completely slipped my mind, and to this day, 'thing' still morphs into 'da jawn' and I still have absolutely no idea who played this clever and entertaining prank.

And that, my friends, is the unsolved mystery of 'da jawn'.