The name that stuck to personal ads for most of the twentieth century.
Personal ads, or the clubs and columns that ran them.
| Type | Historical language |
|---|---|
| Category | Period vocabulary |
| Phrase dated | 1949, Merriam-Webster |
| Most common | 1920s to the 2000s |
Lonely hearts clubs charged a fee and mailed members catalogs of ads, and by 1961 there were at least 500 of them. Merriam-Webster dates lonely hearts as a set phrase to 1949. In Britain the lonely hearts column became the standard name for newspaper personals, and it survived into the 2000s.
Sources: Wikipedia, Personal advertisement.
A man, age 35, begins to feel kind of lonely-like. and thinks that it is time he got married. Communication desired from a good, steady woman about the same age, and if…
VERY LONELY AND WOULD MEET cultured woman or widow of means matrimonially inclined. G-103, News-Times.
RESPECTABLE lonely gent, widower, 40, like meet lady 35 to 40 view above. Apply H4 this office.
Know a term we are missing? Suggest one.
How this fits into 170 years of personal ad shorthand: From Object Matrimony to LTR: How Personal Ads Learned to Talk in Code.
All dictionary entries · The Personals Archive · How to write a personal ad
The form is still open. Say who you are, what you want, and who it is for, and choose exactly who can see it. Free on iOS and Android.