Does your writing give clues to your gender?

Gender Guesser is an online test created by Neal Krawetz, of Hacker Factor Solutions.  According to a May 28 article, Neal Krawetz based this test on previous research showing that gender could be estimated from word usage, and parts of speech, and developed from the Gender Genie.   Gender Guesser is based heavily upon American English over European English, and differentiates between types of writing (basically, formal and informal).  It's self-published accurcy rate is 60-70%.

This is just one type of digital forensics.  I didn't realize that a persons typing style can be a unique identifier, for example.  Neal Krawetz is quoted as having said, "they can tell if you're a left-handed female piano player with an ergonomic keyboard," all the more interesting to me as I use a mouse left-handed with an ergonomic keyboard and used to play piano.  That is a whole other discussion not tested via this simplier, cheaper, online test.   

Test this yourself, and learn more about Gender Guesser by going here:  Gender Guesser  Of course, I had to test it.  Let me know how it works for you, too.  (For comparison, you could also try the original, simplier, Gender Genie here:  The Gender Genie

I copied and pasted various pieces I'd written already, work e-mails, personal e-mail with girlfriends, and a sampling of blog entries.  Gender Guesser lists its guess for formal and informal.  It usually pegged me as female and female, once as female and weak male "or European English," and twice for my blog entries, as weak male "or European English."   It never estimated me to be male.  Overall, I'd agree that it's mostly correct, and fun enough, yet not a 100% reliable indicator.

Tags: Gender Guesser, Neal Krawetz, digital forensics, online writing style, Gender Genie