language

I…you…we…errrr…

…speed-dating study…found that couples who used similar levels of personal pronouns, prepositions and even articles were three times as likely to want to date each other compared with those whose language styles didn’t match. The metric, called language style matching (L.S.M.), was also better at predicting who didn’t make a love connection than the individuals themselves, several of whom showed interest in a partner who did not reciprocate. “It does better than humans themselves who are in the interaction,” said Pennebaker, author of the new book “The Secret Life of Pronouns.” “Some of the most revealing words we use are the shortest and most forgettable.”