Isabel Kloumann and a group of mathematicians at the University of Vermontpublished a paperin 2012 on advantageousness in the English language . They require just over 10,000 of the most frequent English words from a variety of sources ( Twitter , Google Books , The New York Times , and euphony words ) and had people order them on a nine point shell from least well-chosen to most happy , collecting 50 autonomous ratings per password . In the result dataset , availablehere , laughtercomes in at number 1 in perceived happiness , andterroristcomes last .
So what are the happy words in English ? They might be nice to get a line . But it turns out that positivity heaped on positivity becomes , like sugar or a elephantine goofball smile , sickening after a point . To illustrate this problem , here are the top 20 words : laughter , happiness , lovemaking , happy , express joy , express mirth , laughing , excellent , laughs , joy , successful , win , rainbow , smiling , gain ground , pleasure , smiled , rainbows , gain .
As you go down the listing in a binge of overconfident - word reading , many of the prescribed words start to fathom crass ( rich , ball field , resplendence ) , treacly ( butterflies , cupcake , supporter ) , or too obvious ( cocksure , groovy , wonderful ) . The follow 25 quarrel , shown alongside their rankings , struck me as anchors of dead on target quiet positivity in a sea of toothy grinning :
159 – easier172 – interesting205 – honest211 – forests234 – Saturday239 – dinner290 – comfortable320 – gently344 – fresh371 – pal375 – warmth433 – rest449 – welcome491 – dearest504 – useful548 – cherry558 – safe584 – better665 – piano721 – silk741 – relief878 – rhyme892 – hi947 – agree969 – weewee
Your favorite Logos — go !
This story originally ladder in 2012 .
