Philosophically speaking, a word is not simply a word in the sense that it just exists like a fixed cannon fodder, to be hurled back and forth in the premises of a conversation. Words hold context, ...

Origin Uncertain: Unravelling the Mysteries of Etymology. By Anatoly Liberman. Oxford University Press; 344 pages; $29.99 and £22.99 MANY WORDS are puzzles themselves. “Conundrum” confounds scholars; ...

For more than 150 years ago, the assumption that language is a singular event has hampered progress in explaining its evolution. Another obstacle was the failure to recognize that certain social ...

In 1871, Darwin hypothesized that “the difference in mind between man and the higher animals…is one of degree and not of kind.” In the case of language, attempts to define that degree have been an ...

Children seem to delight in picking up the worst words in the playground. But as well as inventing new and modern insults, some words have been on the lips of challenging youngsters for hundreds of ...

The words that once offended your grandmother may now sound quite tame, in an age where swearing is routinely heard in the street. But in some parts of the country, there are words that are used quite ...