Here's a weird one:
Why typing 'sad' makes us miserable but 'jolly' cheers us up
Typing 'sad' makes us miserable while keying 'jolly' makes us happy, researchers claim, simply because of where their letters sit on the keyboard.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
7:00AM GMT 09 Mar 2012
Typing words with your left hand makes you feel more negative about what you are writing, a study claims.
The arrangement of keys on a standard "Qwerty" keyboard means our left hand, which covers 15 letters, has to work harder than our right which is only responsible for 11.
The increased number of letters and difficulty of letter combinations typed by the left hand has gradually made us feel less positive about those typed on its side of the keyboard, and more positive about letters on the right, a study suggests.
Our perception of the words we write is therefore subtly altered depending on where on the keyboard most of the constituent letters are located.
It means we feel sad when typing 'sad' but happy when writing 'jolly.' We also prefer keying in 'money' rather than 'tax' and enjoy typing 'pink' and 'hippy.'
Experiments showed that the trend applies to words coined before and after the invention of the Qwerty keyboard, and to made-up words in English, Dutch and Spanish.
The trend was strongest in new words first used after the arrival of the keyboard, suggesting that the layout of keys could be influencing the evolution of new words, researchers claimed.
Writing in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, they said the study "suggests that the Qwerty keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers.
"It appears that using Qwerty shapes the meanings of existing words and abbreviations get adopted into the lexicon and "texticon" by encouraging the use of words and abbreviations whose emotional valences are congruent with their letters' location on the keyboard."
The Qwerty layout was developed in 1868 to solve the problem with the alphabetical layout of typewriters, which caused certain neighbouring keys to jam during fast typing.
Frequently paired letters were separated on opposite sides of the keyboard, and the letters of the brand name "Type Writer" were all included in the top row to help salesmen demonstrate their product.
Almost 150 years on the decision has had a fundamental impact on the way we perceive language, researchers said.
Previous studies had already indicated that the difficulty we experience in using an object has an impact in how we feel about it.
Researchers analysed more than 1,000 words from each of three languages, and found that on average mainly left-sided words were perceived slightly more negatively than those on the right.
For every additional letter on the right hand side compared with the left, words were viewed on average four per cent more positively, and vice versa.
A second test using only modern words revealed a stronger effect, while a slight trend also appeared in a third experiment asking volunteers to rate made-up words.
Kyle Jasmin of University College London and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research, New York, who led the study, said: "Widespread typing introduces a new mechanism by which changes in the meaning of words can arise.
"People responsible for naming new products, brands, and companies might do well to consider the potential advantages of consulting their keyboards and choosing the 'right' name."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9131379 ... us-up.html
