A study suggests some pattens in profanity are universal. Almost all languages feature foul words, and almost all of those words work in similar ways, functioning to show off our strongest feelings ...

Effective communication lies at the heart of human connection. It helps us collaborate with each other, solve problems and ...

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 ...

Ideophones, or words that sound like what they mean—words whose sound evokes the sensory experience they describe, like swish or twinkle—are easier to learn than other words, a new study finds. The ...

We’ve all experienced how certain sounds can grate on our nerves, such as the noise made by dragging your fingernails across a blackboard (Getty/iStock) During the pandemic, many of us have felt our ...

The wind is up; a dry wind. Between four walls, we're only aware of its presence by the sounds it makes. Whistling, hissing, sometimes howling. The effect on the building is noticeable: creaks in the ...

We recognize words as pictures As your eyes scan these words, your brain seems to derive their meaning instantaneously. How are we able to recognize and interpret marks on a page so rapidly? A small ...

After years of research, neuroscientists have discovered a new pathway in the human brain that processes the sounds of language. The findings, reported August 18 in the journal Cell, suggest that ...

English is a quirky, often confusing language that's been shaped and influenced by many others. As such, it has a massive variety of words—but here are some we think rise above the crowd and deserve ...