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March 9, 2012

Why typing 'sad' makes us miserable but 'jolly' cheers us up

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.'

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