On dating sites, spelling, punctuation are judged | Hacker News Reader

On dating sites, spelling, punctuation are judged

wsj.com

27 pointskatiey45 comments

They use a man as an example for the story, but I'd bet my last dollar this is mostly something women do. And it seems perfectly reasonable, too. The big problem for women on dating sites is too much choice, so any reasonable criteria they can use to winnow down the crowd is a worth applying.

If you send a message riddled with spelling and punctuation mistakes, what you're really saying is "I'm not taking this seriously enough to spend an extra five minutes proofreading my message." You may as well write "Hey, I'm here for the sex, and don't expect me to put any effort into it." Probably fine if your looks can justify that kind of attitude, but for the rest of us...

And yeah, it shouldn't be surprising nobody on Grindr cares.

Probably fine if your looks can justify that kind of attitude, but for the rest of us...

Women tend to care less about "looks" -- or, at least, care differently. I have seen studies that indicate that women are typically looking for "looks" that suggest career success more than hot bod.

> Women tend to care less about "looks" -- or, at least, care differently. I have seen studies that indicate that women are typically looking for "looks" that suggest career success more than hot bod.

From http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dati...:

> As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh.

> Paradoxically, it seems it’s women, not men, who have unrealistic standards for the “average” member of the opposite sex.

But there's also this:

> On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. But with the basic ratings so out-of-whack, the two curves together suggest some strange possibilities for the female thought process, the most salient of which is that the average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.

Perhaps this speaks to your "differently" point, but it's still amusing (or disturbing depending on one's relationship status) that online daters appear to generally be so disconnected from reality.

This really isn't shocking though. The biggest problem with online dating is that it gives people the false impression they have unlimited options. The perfect person (handsome/gorgeous, educated, fun, wealthy, emotionally available, etc.) who will put your past dates to shame could always join tomorrow. This dynamic leads to people becoming incredibly picky[1], so the bar for what constitutes "attractive", "educated", "wealthy", etc. is for many always rising beyond what will ever realistically be available to them.

[1] http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/PSPI-online_dating-p...

Online daters are not the be all and end all of humanity. What people say in studies on dating sites may not be representative of humanity as a whole.

I never said they were. Frankly, the studies should motivate singles to make a concerted effort to get out and interact with people in real life.

> I have seen studies

From my real life experiences, which mostly included asking female friends and colleagues, those studies have always sounded absurd, pretentious, and stupid. Looks matter a lot. Really a lot; for either sex. That is almost ubiquitously true especially for these dating sites.

This guy put it really good there:

> “It’s the visual. I don’t think anybody reads these things,” says Mr. Simkhai. “If you’re hot and attractive to the other person, you’ll meet them. Grammar? Are you kidding?”

That's exactly how it works, aberrations or exceptions aside.

The last two paragraphs about how Grindr is completely different are great.

Is the poor punctuation in the title (the article's subtitle) deliberate irony?

I realize that headlines don't follow quite the same rules as normal English, but the way it's written is a real mess:

> On dating sites, spelling, punctuation are judged

Why not use correct and easily understood punctuation and grammar?

> On dating sites, spelling and punctuation are judged

Newspaper headline style often trades grammar for brevity to accommodate a small amount of space in print. Replacing "and" with a comma is a common convention.

I'm aware of that, but thanks for pointing it out in any case.

It just seemed like an odd choice in a subtitle about punctuation.

its about ads prints, not about information or sense of any kind :)

That's fair. I'm guessing one of the following happened:

1. The editor rewrote the headline (this happens often) without considering the content of the article

2. Newspaper people are so used to their standards for headlines that they don't think of their style as bad grammar

I find spelling/grammar mistakes annoying in a profile, but probably won't affect my decision/interest that much.

English isn't my first language so I won't really care if English is not their first language either. But if all you've learned to read/speak/write is English I think having poor grammar is indicative of being less educated/intelligent. I think even guys only have so much time to spend trying to find a date.

If all you want is to get laid though, who cares.

I'm amazed this warranted research and an WSJ article.

I would love to see what the article's copy looked like when it landed on the editor's desk :-)

There is bad grammar and there is "I will see you their".

It sounds more like an autocorrect mistake than anything. I hope people don't let those linger in their minds.

Exactly what I thought. I've seen some bizarre stuff come out of autocorrect, so I tend to give a little latitude in that department. But, if the message says something like "Heyyyy u r so hott," that's one that's getting deleted or ignored.

tldr and reinterpretation:

If the grammer is bad enough it means either of two things:

- the person is not well educated regarding English/local language (that's a turn-off)

- the person's spell checker auto-completed wrong/typed too fast

Now what that tells you when someone interprets this always as "uneducated" or "person doesn't pay enough attention to me" (and will "justi-lie" it as "no, no I just don't like bad grammar/typos")?

Well, that means they're assholes. So, in the end, things work out at nature intended.

Obligatory: http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-849/

It's all about priorities. For me no matter how hot is someone, a single stupid phase is a turn-off. And a clever phase can make me intrigued, even if the visual site is less than perfect. (keyword: sapiosexual)

But I get that for some others (most?) it's all about the looks.

I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or just delightful irony.

I can't tell whether they meant side or sight.

Poe's law meets Muphry's Law.

A golf clap for you. Well played, sir.

The "sapiosexual" designation is ridiculous. I find it impossible to believe everyone claiming it is sexually attracted to say, Stephen Hawking.

It implies people aren't usually attracted to intelligence, despite that being an entirely normal and common thing.

That is ridiculous. When is attraction ever so myopic?

Do you like skinny girls? Then why aren't you attracted to rail thin frail old women?

Yes I do. But I don't go round labelling myself as a "skinnysexual" (macrescosexual?) for liking skinny girls, because that would be silly.

That term is like the insignia-in-fashion for Indian (where I'm from) teens on Quora these days.

"I am so smart, I've risen above looks, but not mistakes."

I'm happy to be rejected by people who are anal retentive about spelling and punctuation. They're 100% not my type. This is especially true because I interact with lots of people whose first language is not English which means "bad" grammar is par for the course. The same people that would reject you for having bad grammar are effectively racists

"The same people that would reject you for having bad grammar are effectively racists."

Now, how exactly did you arrive at this conclusion? This just might be one of the most, if not the most, ridiculous statements I've ever seen on here.

The poster was probably just drawing an equivalence between people who operate on simple stereotypes. In some sense, both the grammar Nazi and the racist accept the same fallacy.

However, if your grammar is so poor that I cannot easily read your sentences, there is a good chance that I will not try further to read them.

I never realised that "speaking English as a first language" was a race.

Hence his use of the word “effectively.” [insert some sort of quip questioning if English is your first language here]

In this context, 'effectively' is a weasel word that doesn't actually change the intent of the comment.

It is a modifier that makes explicit his intention not to use the word literally. Ironic that I'm getting dinged in a thread of discussion about language.

If you want to tell they guy he's hyperbolic (he is), then fine, but don't tell him he said this something was ACTUALLY the same as being racist when he went out of his way not to

It's easy to tell when someone's first language is english, and they're lazy, or when it's not, and they're making honest mistakes because they're used to another language. With a little bit of experiences, even dyslexia is easily identified.

Wow, chatting with them must be like I am writing an essay to my English teacher. Maybe the bar will raise in future and they are going to reject those that do not provide at least 3 preferences.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com