Like a lot of married couples, my wife and I often find ourselves speaking in a kind of code.

I have mentioned this before, although it's not really a code. That would require far too much effort: "OK, honey. Remember that when I say 'banana,' what I'm really saying is 'my left knee hurts.'"

Our style of speech is more like the predictive text feature on most mobile phones, an attempt at efficiency for those who send text messages

Hoping to save you valuable typing time, predictive text guesses the words you are trying to write. For example, if you managed to type in "h-e," the software will automatically put the word "hello" in its place.

So, after seven years of marriage, my wife and I have become good at guessing what the other trying to say. Often, we save time by simply answering questions before they are asked.

ME: "Where are..."
RACHEL: "On the coffee table in the living room. Be sure..."
ME: "I'll get two packages."

See? I was able to ask my wife where my keys were and she was able to tell me to buy extra paper towels at the store without having to waste all that precious oxygen.

Most couples have a similar system. Most, but not all. Last week, my wife and I were in Rosslare, Ireland, where I found myself sitting near an English couple who clearly did not communicate in code. Arguably, they just didn't communicate.

From the hotel's breakfast room, we could look down at the port and watch the cars and buses and freight moving on and off the ships. Sitting at the table next to us was the English couple in question. They appeared to be of retirement age, but not so old that you would have expected them to be losing any mental agility.

The woman spoke with an accent that made strange overuse of the "W" sound, and the man didn't seem to understand a word of it.

"I saway," the woman said. "Thewar certanwy a wot of cwoaches awiving this mowning."
"Eh?" the man bellowed.
"Cwoaches," the woman said, pointing to the buses being driven off one of the ferries. "Thewar certanwy a wot of them this mowning."
"Pardon?"
"Cwoaches."
"Coaches?"
"Yes."
"What about them?"
"Thewar a wot of them awiving this mowning."
"What?"
"A wot of cwoaches."
"Eh? I say, though, there certainly are a lot of coaches arriving this morning."
"That's wot I swaid."
"Pardon?"
"What I swaid."
"What did you say?"
"I swaid thewar a wot of coaches."
"Yes, yes, of course there are a lot of coaches. I just said that."

The two of them went on and on -- about the number of vehicles on the ferries, the weather, the quality of the breakfast. I had several coughing fits as I tried to conceal laughter at their total inability to converse with one another.

It was slightly difficult to understand the woman through her style of speech, but you would have thought the man would have gotten used to it after a little while. You would have thought that they would have developed a couples' code.

The experience provided my wife and me with a new inside joke, allowing us to make one another laugh just by blustering, "Pardon?," but it also made me think about the way that she and I interact.

Which brings me back to predictive text. I hate it. I have only twice tried to respond to a text message, and both times it was so frustrating that I just gave up. It consistently failed to get even close to what I was trying to say.

My wife is considerably smarter than a Motorola V3, but there's still a risk that in the process of running around using half sentences, something might be lost. Or worse, something might not be said at all.

We're still pretty busy trying to settle in after moving to a new home and I realized that I hadn't really told her in a while that I love her. I hadn't told her in a while all the reasons why I love her.

It took a few minutes to say all those words (and she thought I was trying to soften her up to ask a favor), but it was worth it. When I try to write "I love you" on a mobile phone, predictive text translates it to "glove zoom." Sometimes it's better to take the time to say what you mean.

Chris Cope lives with his wife in Cardiff, Wales. His column appears every other Tuesday.