Linguists have noticed that many swear words share the same sharp, punchy sounds—hard consonants like “k,” “t,” and “g” that burst out of the mouth rather than flow. When a study examined those sound ...

Across dozens of languages, people associate the same sounds with the same shapes, according to new research. What can this tell us about how language first developed in humans? A new study found that ...

A swear word is like a linguistic punch in the nose. Virtually every language and culture has them—and virtually every language and culture formally disapproves of them. But that doesn’t stop them ...

Wearing headsets, 18 subjects lay quietly while a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) droned on around their heads. They listened as a female voice recited a famous line from a ...

Q: My granddaughter is repeating first grade because she has problems with reading, especially nonsense words. What are nonsense words? I would love to be able to help her. — Grammie A: Nonsense words ...