The study, led by Kyle Jasmin of University College London and Daniel Casasanto of The New School for Social Research, New York, found that emotional responses to typing certain words depended on where the letters sit on the keyboard.

Researchers analysed more than 1000 words from English, Dutch and Spanish.

The arrangement of letters on a standard ‘qwerty’ keyboard means that our left hand – which covers 15 letters – has to work harder than our right hand, which covers 11.

According to the research, the increased number of letters and difficulty of letter combinations typed by the left hand has gradually made typists feel less positive about that side of the keyboard, and more positive about letters on the right.

This means that you feel sad when typing ‘sad’, but happy when writing ‘jolly.’ It would also suggest that you prefer typing ‘money’ over typing ‘tax’.

The researchers have also claimed that the layout of keys could be influencing the evolution of new words, as the trend was strongest in new words first used after the invention of the ‘qwerty’ keyboard in 1868.

Writing in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, researchers said the study “suggests that the Qwerty keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers.

“It appears that using Qwerty shapes the meanings of existing words and abbreviations get adopted into the lexicon and ‘texticon’ by encouraging the use of words and abbreviations whose emotional valences are congruent with their letters’ location on the keyboard.” 

So there you go.