“A massive language study, spanning Google Books, Twitter, popular songs lyrics and The New York Times, has found that English tends to look on the bright side of things. Positive words outnumber the negative.”
So reports Brandon Keim in his article “Happy Words Trump Negativity in the English Language” (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/english-positivity/).
This comes as no surprise. As a former writing teacher, I often advised students to write positively rather than negatively. It is harder for people to understand a negative sentence (e.g., “It is not as difficult now”) than a positive one (e.g., “It is easier now”).
And positive statements tend to be shorter than negative ones, again speeding comprehension.
I guess this means we can pack more positive sentiments into a given conversation or paragraph than we could pack negative ones.
So, as the old song goes “accentuate the positive.” Sounds like a worthy goal.
