Happy Englishness
September 22, 2011 at 9:23 pm Leave a comment
Could it be that English speakers are biased toward exercising the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Accentuate the Positive”?
The Scientist reports that, “In one of the most comprehensive analyses of the English language to date, mathematicians from Cornell University and the University of Vermont collated more than 10,000 words from four sources of text—Google Books, Twitter, The New York Times, and song lyrics. The words were scored on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being the most negative and 9 being the most positive. (The highest score was awarded to “laughter,” which received an 8.5, while “terrorist” received the lowest, coming it at 1.3.)
Overall, the researchers found that positive words outnumbered negative ones, suggesting “a positivity bias” in the [English] language.”
Entry filed under: Accentuate the Positive. Tags: .
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