But keyboards may have an impact on the emotional associations we have with words as well. It has been found that words consisting of a higher proportion of letters from the right-hand side of a QWERTY keyboard – those from “y”, “h” and “n” onwards – have more positive associations. This phenomenon is known as the “QWERTY effect”.
Researchers have previously tested the idea by asking English, Dutch and Spanish speakers to rate their positive association with different words, including made-up ones such as “ploke” and “pleek”. One study even found that baby names with a higher proportion of right-side letters grew in popularity after QWERTY keyboards became widespread in the 1960s.
