to turn to the person next to you and
say the word hello you don’t have to say
your name no need to introduce yourself
just say the word hello please go ahead
okay you guys are awake now I’d like for
you all to do it again but this time
instead of saying the word hello I’d
like you to say the word greetings go
ahead thank you for indulging me now if
you had a little bit more fun the second
time the reason I’m here today is to
perhaps tell you why and no it doesn’t
have to do with the fact that breedings
is just a funny word that nobody really
says anymore though that could be part
of it but I think that there may be more
today I’m going to tell you what that is
but first I’m going to tell you a story
when I was a freshman here at UT I was
enrolled in a very interesting math
class at the end of the semester we were
given an assignment to create a new idea
about something we were passionate about
the assignment only had two rules the
first rule was that the idea had to be
derived using a mathematical concept
addition subtraction multiplication
anything like that
the second rule was that the idea itself
the topic had to be completely unrelated
to math as long as we were passionate
about it so as I was brainstorming the
topic was a no-brainer to me I’ve always
been passionate about words writing
language anything really about the way
that we communicate and the effect that
it has I was thinking and you know as
we’re writing words are really the only
tool we have to convey the concepts in
our minds so we play around with this
tool as much as we can until we get as
close as possible to the idea we want to
share here was my big question my new
idea what if we gave ourselves another
tool a tool that’s already present in
the toolies now a tool that’s smaller
than the current tool but if used wisely
could have an even larger and deeper
impact a tool that resonates not just
logically but physiologically as well in
other words
instead of analyzing words based on
their definition or their context can we
analyze words in a meaningful way by
simplifying them down to their base
units letters can letter choice be an
effective tool of its own let’s find out
so to explore this idea I crafted an
experiment I took the first stanza of
Maya Angelou’s famous poem I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings and I created two
different adaptations of it in the first
adaptation I replaced as many words as I
could with synonyms that had a high
concentration of letters and letter
combinations that produce the long e
sound for example I replaced the word
wind with the word breeze in the second
adaptation I did the same thing replaced
as many words as I could with synonyms
but this time the synonyms had a high
concentration of letters and letter
combinations that produce the long and
short you sounds so oh and uh in this
example I replace the word wind with the
word gust as you guys can see both of
the poems are about the exact same thing
they tell the same story they just used
different words and really words with
different letter concentrations to get
that message across so I printed these
palms out and I went to the park one day
I went up to 40 individuals and I asked
them to read each poem out loud and then
tell me which one they thought was
happier to give you guys a sense of what
these adaptations looked like I’ve
reproduced them both here but with the
color code to show you guys what I’ve
changed the underlined words are the
synonyms the words that I’ve replaced
that as close as possible to the
original meaning and the letters in blue
are the letters that produce the vowel
sound that is being targeted in that
adaptation I’m going to read each of
these poems out loud and I invite all of
you to read them out loud with me or at
least mouth along as I go we’ll start
with this first poem with the sounds
ready the free bird leaps on the rear of
the breeze and sweeps downstream till
the extreme edge of the creek and
immerses his wings in the
sunny beam and pleased to claim the
atmosphere you guys are awesome let’s
move on to the second adaptation the one
with the you sounds ready the loose bird
flew through the gust and cruises down
the rivulet till he comes to the cusp
and plunges his opinion in the orange
sunrays and dares to occupy the view
thank you guys some of you may be onto
me by now but when I asked participants
to tell me which one they thought was
happier ninety five percent said that
they thought the first poem with the
east sounds was happier why is that why
is it that two poems that tell the same
story lead to an overwhelming majority
thinking the first poem is happier it’s
because of this one pronounced letters
that produced the long e sound cause
one’s facial muscles to move in a way
that stimulates a smile even though it’s
not a real smile such as one produced
from genuine happiness there’s studies
that reveal that the facial changes
involved in smiling trigger brain
activities associated with happiness one
study done in 1989 by psychologist
Robert Sejong shows that this has to do
with a temperature change that takes
place in the brain as a result of muscle
movements for example when you smile
your facial muscles stretch and tighten
this causes certain veins to restrict
the amount of blood flowing to the brain
a reduction in blood volume leads to a
reduction in blood temperature and as
that cooler blood hits your brain your
brain temperature lowers as well and
this triggers a happy feeling now if
that’s a little too science-u for you
because it’s a little too sciency for me
all you have to know is this
there is a real physiological effect
here but I wasn’t satisfied with just
that I wanted to know if this to
love-letter choice only works with
verbal communication in other words do
you actually have to go through the
physical pronounciation process to get
this meaning out of letters or does the
effect still work has our Brit have our
brains built up an association over time
and they still recognize the impact of
these letters
so I went back to the park I asked
another 40 individuals to this time read
the poems silently but again tell me
which one they thought was happier
they’ve got to say people are a lot more
willing to participate in your poetry
experiment if you don’t ask them to read
anything out loud as you guys probably
feel so it was easier this time around
but again 72% of people said the first
poem with the e sounds was happier what
this means is that letters do have
meaning their frequency matters and this
concept works so I got really excited I
went home and I started to do more
research and I realized this idea isn’t
actually new it’s called sound symbolism
and it’s the idea that vocal sounds
carry meaning in and of themselves and
in fact letters have always meant more
to us than we’ve realized some of you
may have heard of the booba and Kiki
effect this was an experiment done in
1929 by psychologist Wolfgang köhler
and adapted again in 2001 the experiment
goes like this
participants are shown two shapes such
as the ones reproduced here and they’re
asked which one do you think is named
Kiki and which one do you think is named
booba what do you guys think by show of
hands how many of you would name the one
on the left Kiki all of you guys well
you guys are not alone because 95% of
the original respondents named the
shapes like this with Kiki being the
shape with harsher sharper edges and
booba being the shape with softer
rounder edges Wikipedia describes this
booba Kiki effect as a non arbitrary
mapping between speech sounds and visual
shapes in this idea with letter choice
is similar it’s a non arbitrary mapping
between speech sounds their
corresponding facial expressions and
emotion so the effect actually prevails
beyond just these two vowel
concentrations in 2001 richard wiseman
set out to prove the well-known theory
in comedy that the letter K is the
funniest letter in the English alphabet
the theory is that jokes that contain
the most K’s in
usually get the most laughs his
experiment went like this it was a
simple joke formula two cows are sitting
in the field one cow says Moo the other
one says hey I was gonna say that it’s a
silly joke but he reproduced it with a
variety of different animals and a
variety of different animal sounds and
he asked participants to rate these
jokes based on how funny they were so
there were jokes of this format jokes
that didn’t follow this format but the
joke of this format that had the highest
rating for comedy was in fact the one
with the most K’s in it – ducks are
sitting in a pond one duck says quack
the other one says hey I was gonna say
that
some of the some of this research may be
silly but overall there is something
here there is a legitimacy to this idea
about letter choice that is fundamental
to the way that we communicate and more
so to why our communication has the
effect that it does in other words the
answer is yes latter choice can be an
effective tool of its own and this idea
has a variety of different implications
in a variety of different fields for
example this could add a new level of
depth to literary analysis by
simplifying the idea of analyzing words
to analyzing mere letters readers may be
able to achieve a deeper understanding
or a more acute sense of the tone a
writer is trying to convey or is
inadvertently conveying in his or her
work and writers can use this to their
advantage as well for example if a
writer were trying to describe somebody
experiencing happiness they may choose
to use the word cheery rather than the
word joyous because when readers digest
this word they would not only have a
conceptual understanding of the
happiness but a simultaneous physical
relation to it and beyond that as a
marketing major myself the marketing and
advertising implications of this tool
get me very excited marketers and
advertisers can use this to increase the
power of their brands slogans and
general messaging content for example if
a company were trying to come up with
their
new TV commercial they wanted to be
catchy they may use this tool and
increase use a bunch of words that have
this e sound so that when their
listeners get this jingle stuck in their
heads they’re singing it as they walk
down the street it will have a subtle
association with happiness and therefore
an overall more positive connotation
with the brand or product in music music
is a perfect example of an industry
where musicians are trying to get their
listeners to feel something very
specific and convey something in a
certain way if this idea were
implemented in songwriting
I think the effects could be marvelous
and lastly it’s just so cool I think
that there’s something so beautiful
about this idea of letter choice and
that it gets closer and closer to
establishing a universal way to portray
understand an influencer emotion in
communication it gives not just writers
but communicators all of us another tool
that we can use to become more precise
in our communication in conclusion it
may or may not surprise you that I
actually use this tool and can preparing
to give this speech today I was very
nervous before getting up here to come
on stage but instead of telling myself
calm down you’ll do fine I told myself
breathe be free succeed it sounds silly
but they were the first three words I
could think of that had this high
concentration of e sounds and I repeated
it to myself dozens and dozens of times
did it work
all I can tell you is that it certainly
got me smiling and I’m definitely feeling happy to be here today thank you