Keys to Dating: Personal Hygiene, Personality, and Spell Check

The Wall Street Journal had a story this week about the growing importance of grammar on dating sites.

Some of the members of dating sites say written communications matter, from the correct use of semicolons, to understanding the difference between its and it’s, and sentences built on proper parallel construction.

One woman from New York noted “When you get a message that is grammatically correct and has a voice and is put together, it is very attractive, it definitely adds hotness points.” There’s even an app that ranks the message quality of prospective dates. Called the Grade, the app checks messages for typos and grammar errors and assigns each user a letter grade from A+ to F.

Dating site Match asked more than 5,000 singles in the U.S. what criteria they used most in assessing dates. Beyond personal hygiene—which 96% of women valued most, as compared with 91% of men—singles said they judged a date foremost by the person’s grammar. The survey found 88% of women and 75% of men said they cared about grammar most, putting it ahead of a person’s confidence and teeth.

Analysis of spelling errors on dating site eHarmony by Grammarly found that a man with two spelling errors on the site was 14% less likely to receive a positive response compared with a man with zero spelling errors. Poor spelling by a woman, on the other hand, didn’t seem to affect her chances of a positive match.

In addition to decreasing the chances of getting a date, Sift Science, a fraud-detection company that uses big data, also says that certain types of typos are associated with fraud.

While my ability to spell and diagram sentences didn’t do too much for my love life back in grade school or high school, it seems like I would be a pretty hot commodity on OkCupid today.

But sorry ladies, I’m already spoken four. (Just trying to kool off some of the women reeding this blog…)