Without the S word, Minchin shows true intent

Non-fiction

The title is odd, the cover is grey and the author is a besuited Eurocrat. But beneath these unflamboyant exteriors lie a colourful story. It has taken 10 years, the dedication of a small UK publisher and a perfect-pitch translation to deliver Diego Marani's first novel in English. When it came out in Italian, reviewers called it a masterpiece and it won several prizes. Since then Marani has written five more novels and become a Euro-celebrity for inventing a mock language called "Europanto" – a tossed salad of every European language without rules or grammar.

Swearing after injury may be good for your health, new research suggests. Scientists from Keele University found that letting forth a volley of foul language can have a "pain-lessening effect".

The visual interpretation of the alphabet should be simple enough. What better way to visualise the letter 'a' than by thinking typographically, after all. But three design studios have decided to reinvent the alphabetical wheel by imagining what written letters would look like based on their phonetic versions: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and so on.

You can imagine several reasons why KFC has decided that its slogan, "Finger lickin' good", must bite the dust.

New guidance will tell social workers that they should allow white couples to adopt black and ethnic minority children, it was revealed today.

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Linguistics boffins might insist James Naughtie's verbal slip was a spoonerism that occurred thanks to the easy exchange of the C for Culture with the H for Hunt. But analyse any conversation and you will find a dozen similar possibilities. Why did Naughtie make precisely this slip at this moment to cause himself and the nation maximum embarrassment (or hilarity, depending on your sensitivity)?

Researchers who had used bamboo rafts to ford surging rivers and climbed steep mountains in the remote north-east of India were rewarded for their toil with the discovery of a rich new language spoken by fewer than 1,000 people.