Why is autocorrect offering replacement of clearly misspelled words??

I am regularly fighting an automatic highlighting of a correctly spelled word, to what I assume was perhaps an original fat fingered spelling.

e.g. Working in apple mail app

I am proofing an email

phrase is “if needed”

I was trying to change “if” to “as” and if I touch to put my cursor after if (to delete “if”) it instead instantly auto highlights “needed” and offers a change to “meedwd”

Why on earth would autocorrect regularly be offering a suggested change to clearly misspelled words?

And why is that highlighting activated when my cursor isn’t even touching that word?

I do not want to entirely lose autocorrect but ever since update a few weeks (months?) ago this new phenomenon has been driving me nuts.

On iOS 17.1.1