13. The handheld electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the plurality of objects further include a plurality of frequency objects each having a frequency value, at least some of the artificial variants each being associated with an associated frequency object, and further comprising outputting the first character permutations in descending order of frequency value.
16. The handheld electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the operations further comprise: outputting as a default output a particular first character permutation that corresponds with a first artificial variant that is associated with a frequency object having a relatively greatest frequency value; detecting an additional input; identifying a second artificial variant which corresponds with the ambiguous input plus the additional input and which is associated with a frequency object having a relatively greatest frequency value; and making a determination that the second artificial variant is different than the first artificial variant and, responsive thereto, outputting as another default output an artificial variant comprising the particular first character permutation plus a character assigned to the input member of the additional character selection.