“This isn’t just trivial, either. This bias supports the idea that language is a social construct, meant to engender positive relations between groups. That’s why language retains a net happiness, even when talking about bad news — it’s hard-wired human nature to follow up a sad story with some good news. Even if the thoughts we want to convey are sad, most of the words available to us are happy ones, and so we can’t go for long without saying something positive.”