“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine,”Emily Dickinson wrote.
As a writer, I am in love, captivated, and addicted to words. And with good reason. Words are powerful and sometimes even magical.
Cruel words can cause pain or anger, make us cry, and bring disharmony to the world. On the other hand, inspiring words can lift us up, bring joy, motivate us to do good, offer hope, heal, and excite us.
That brings me to the subject of this article: What are the happiest words in the English language?
I ran into an interesting article in The Atlantic,The 200 Happiest Words in Literature.
As a writer, I was fascinated by this subject.If you take a writing class, one of the first things you learn is that every story known to man can be reduced to a handful of plot lines.
Opinions vary on exactly which plot lines those are; however, researchers from the University of Vermont and the University of Adelaide collected computer-generated story arcs for nearly 2,000 works of fiction and classified each into six types of narratives based on what happens to the protagonist:
(1) Rags to Riches (rise), (2)Riches to Rags (fall), (3) Man in a Hole (fall then rise), (4)Icarus (rise then fall), (5)Cinderella (rise then fall then rise), and (6)Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)
The study focused on the emotional highs and lows of each story type. Then, the computer analyzed which emotional structure writers used most and which ones the readers liked best.
Using10,000 of the most frequently used English words,researchers then asked people to rate the happiness quotient of the words they encountered. In the end, they had this massive list of words ranked by happiness. The results?
The happiest word: Laughter – followed byhappiness, love, happy, laughed, laugh, laughing, excellent, laughs, and joy.
The least happy: Terrorist – followed bysuicide, rape, terrorism, murder, death, cancer, killed, kill, and die.
In the middle of the pack you’ll find dull words like particularly, list, brown, expectations, equation, index, and explain.
That gives you a glimpse, but if you’re curious what made the top 100, I’m including a more detailed list below.
So we can end on a high note, we’ll start with the 100 words that were at the bottom of the heap as least happy. These words are truly awful:
Terrorist, suicide, rape, terrorism, murder, death, cancer, killed, kill, died, torture, raped, deaths, arrested, killing, die, terror, jail, kills, war, murdered, killings, fatal, tortured, abused, sickness, failed, cry, cruel, violence, sadness, diseases, abuse, wars, evil, earthquake, depressing, poison, fail, disaster, bomb, tumors, poverty, headache, depression, criminal, punishment, killers, illness, disease, dead, slavery, sick, (curse word), rejection, injury, destroyed, crying, violent, tragedy, slaves, slave, prison, hates, failure, fails, bankruptcy, virus, suffer, robbery, rejected, racist, dies, worst, pain, funeral, dying, heartbreak, unhappy, unemployment, sorrow, painful, hurts, hated, crimes, corruption, pollution, homeless, drowned, agony, tsunami, robbed, hurt, divorced, depressed, loser, crime, cried, suffering, injured.
That was dismal and depressing, so let’s move on to the happy words.
Before we begin, however, I’d like to note that some of the words wouldn’t make my list. For example, materialistic words like rich, diamonds, profit, millionaire, promotion, earnings, and profits. Really, people?
In my opinion, other words have more merit. Happy words like laughter, joy, peaceful, sunlight, weekend, honesty, hugs, exciting, optimistic, song, goodness, humor, smiles, kisses, celebrate, moonlight, fun, and friendship. I was also happy to see a few spiritual words like praise, faithful, honor, blessings, heavens, angels, and glory make the list.
I also agreed with the participants that chocolate is one of the happiest words. And you’ll notice grandmother and grandma made the top 200. Love that!
So here’s the complete list, beginning with the happiest. I am giving you twice as many happy words to make up for all the brutal words listed above – 200 in all. See what you think:
Laughter, happiness, love, happy, laughed, laugh, laughing, excellent, laughs, joy, successful, win, rainbow, smile, won, pleasure, smiled, rainbows, winning, celebration, enjoyed, healthy, music, celebrating, congratulations, weekend, celebrate, comedy, jokes, rich, victory, Christmas, free, friendship, fun, holidays, loved, loves, loving, beach, hahaha, kissing, sunshine, delicious, friends, funny, outstanding, paradise, sweetest, vacation, butterflies, freedom, flower, great, sunlight, sweetheart, sweetness, award, chocolate, hahahaha, heaven, peace, splendid, success, enjoying, kissed, attraction, celebrated, hero, hugs, positive, sun, birthday, blessed, fantastic, winner, delight, beauty, butterfly, entertainment, funniest, honesty, sky, smiles, succeed, wonderful, glorious, kisses, promotion, family, gift, humor, romantic, cupcakes, festival, hahahahaha, honor, relax, weekends, angel, b-day, bonus, brilliant, diamonds, holiday, lucky, mother, super, amazing, angels, enjoy, friend, friendly, mother’s, profit, finest, bday, champion, grandmother, haha, kiss, kitten, miracle, mom, sweet, blessings, bright, cutest, entertaining, excited, excitement, joke, millionaire, prize, succeeded, successfully, winners, shines, awesome, genius, achievement, cake, cheers, exciting, goodness, hug, income, party, puppy, smiling, song, succeeding, tasty, victories, achieved, billion, cakes, easier, flowers, gifts, gold, merry, families, handsome, lovers, affection, candy, cute, diamond, earnings, interesting, peacefully, praise, relaxing, roses, Saturdays, faithful, heavens, cherish, comfort, congrats, cupcake, earn, extraordinary, glory, hilarious, moonlight, optimistic, peaceful, romance, feast, attractive, glad, grandma, internet, pleasant, profits, smart.
Ah, that was much better than all those totally heartless words, right?
So, now you know what other people thought. What’s your favorite happy words? Please share in the comments below!
Images courtesy of punsayap*rn and emoticons by farconville at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
