“Cursing, they say, is a human universal. Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, living or dead, spoken by millions or by a small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech. Some researchers are so impressed by the depth and power of strong language that they are using it as a peephole into the architecture of the brain, as a means of probing the tangled, cryptic bonds between the newer, “higher” regions of the brain in charge of intellect, reason and planning, and the older, more ‘bestial’ neural neighborhoods that give birth to our emotions.”