Vocabulary and attraction

Single men, take note! It may be time to start casually dropping big words into flirtatious conversations. Tongue twisters like triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) or sesquipedalian (characterized by long words!). Researchers have long known that intelligence is one of the qualities that women look for in partner (and they care even more about for short-term hookups than they do for long-term partnerships). Well, it appears that vocabulary can be added to the list of proxies that women use to judge intelligence. In a recent British study, students were asked to imagine a romantic encounter with someone or to imagine a conversation with an older person. Then the students were asked to write an essay on an unrelated topic. The result? Male students who had been primed with thoughts of romance used more unusual words in their essays. This should give hope to any of us geeks and nerds who fear we might never find someone and hide our insecurity behind daunting vocabulary words.