Online Dating? Watch You’re Grammar

It might be worth watching your language if you are looking for love. Nearly half of singles — 48 per cent — consider poor grammar to be a “deal breaker” when online dating, according to a recent study.

AU Editor’s Note: Yes, we know the headline’s wrong, guys. Well done! — Cam

Image: Shutterstock

Over 9,000 singles from dating website Zoosk were surveyed, and it turns out people can be pretty harsh when it comes to judging how potential love interests string a sentence together.

Unsurprisingly, Men are more lenient than women, with 60 per cent not willing to let grammar get in the way of a date. I say unsurprisingly due to previous social experiments that have shown some men are willing to overlook almost anything if it means getting a date.

On the flip side, for 65 per cent of women, poor grammar is a huge red flag.

72 per cent of respondents revealed they are turned off the most by blatant spelling errors; forgetting that space between “alot” will decrease response rates by 12 per cent.

Nearly a quarter of respondents think poor grammar means someone is uneducated or unintelligent, while 27 per cent believe poor grammar indicates someone is lazy or just doesn’t care.

Contrary to popular belief, using a full stop at the end of a text message impressed respondents – 93 per cent would be happy if they received a text message with this proper punctuation (rather than assume it’s aggressive or insincere).

Some other interesting stats that came out the survey include first messages containing an exclamation point are 10 per cent more likely to be responded to than average! Your message is also 25 per cent more likely to be responded to if it contains a “LOL”.

Dropping in a casual YOLO, on the other hand, decreases response rates by 47 per cent.

All hope is not lost for the grammatically challenged, though. 40 per cent of those surveyed said poor grammar doesn’t say anything about a person, ‘they just made some mistakes.’

It’s probably a good idea to avoid the YOLO though — just in case.


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