What’s in a swear? The world’s filthiest words typically refer to something vulgar or taboo, for one. But there’s something else swears across the world’s languages have in common. They’re all missing ...

What's in a swear? The world's filthiest words typically refer to something vulgar or taboo, for one. But there's something else swears across the world's languages have in common. They're all missing ...

Humans boast a rich trove of words to express the way we feel. Some are not easily translatable between languages: Germans use “Weltschmerz” to refer to a feeling of melancholy caused by the state of ...

These four sounds are missing from some of the seven words you can never say on television, and the pattern prevails in other languages too, researchers say. By Elizabeth Preston “Holy motherforking ...

Linguists use machine-learning techniques for mining large text corpora to detect how the structure of a language lends meaning to its words. They work on the assumption that terms that appear in ...

Ryan McKay receives funding from the NOMIS Foundation. Shiri Lev-Ari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, ...