PTI

London, Jul 12: Move over, sex appeal. Girls now want guys with text appeal, for a new survey has revealed that chat-up lines are getting shorter as women are actually rating prospective dates on their texting skills.

According to the survey, men who can combine wit and wisdom in an abbreviated message win a woman's heart - this is because the way a male uses his cell phone's keypad says a lot about his personality.

''Paying attention to texting is important for single men as women place so much importance on it,'' the Daily Star quoted William Ostrom of enquiry service 118118, which carried out the poll, as saying.

In fact, the survey revealed that more than three in four women judge a potential date's character by his texting style. And almost nine in ten girls prefer communicating by text rather than real phone conversations after the initial number swapping stage of a relationship.

This is partly because 37 per cent believe that men who prefer to call can appear desperate while sending a text does not give the same impression.

Despite the slang abbreviations associated with text messaging, a surprising 41 per cent of women are turned off by bad spelling and poor grammar in an SMS message.

Two-thirds claim they are more likely to go for men who send longer texts including humour and some innocent flirting.

According to the survey, men should not go too heavy on the sarcasm or appear ''lewd'' but use a witty style to build a rapport.

Basic messages which lack emotion such as basic instructions to meet at a certain time and place are less popular and some 56 per cent of women are left cold by them.

Even more unpopular are the heavily abbreviated texts using smiley faces and phrases like C U L8R, which are a turn off to 63 per cent of girls.