A mathematician found the ultimate swear word and it is beyond your imagination

Swearing is a common way to express frustration or anger. But what if there was an ultimate swearword that was even more powerful? That's what a student at King's College London has set out to find.

What

Sophie Maclean, a MSc mathematics student, used a mathematical probability model called a Markov chain to analyze a list of swearwords. The model found that the most likely letters to appear at the beginning and end of an ultimate swearword were "b" and "er." This narrowed down the possibilities to just two words: "banger" and "ber."

How did she create it?

For her next PhD project in analytic number theory, Maclean ran a long list of swear words by the ‘Markov’s Chain’ probability model, which produced a code that said the ultimate swear word ever starts with the letter ‘b’ and ends with ‘er’. 

Now that opens the door to a huge door of possible words and Maclean brought it down to two. ‘Banger’ or ‘ber’. Provided that the former already had an image for itself in the world of slang, she went with the obvious. However, the wide and new window of unused opportunity lies with the word ‘ber’.

What is this Markov Chain?

In 1906, a Russian mathematician, Andrey Markov created a mathematical probability model used to predict the likelihood of a sequence by considering the input that came before it. It calculates the probabilities of each letter occurring after the one that precedes it. The model was inevitably called, quite obviously, the Markov Chain. 

Maclean used this particular predictive text-like model theory and came up with the code that gave her the ultimate swear-word…”ber”.

Not the first made-up cuss word

This is not the first time that an out-of-the ordinary cuss word has come up to challenge the usual lot. There have been numerous such words in the world of fiction famously:

• “Mudblood” in Harry Potter 
• “Karabast” in the Star Wars universe. 

One thing constant among all those made up cuss words, all of these exist only among the fan groups of the specific stories they were used in.

Will ‘ber’ make the cut?

It is safe to say that in no turn-of-time ever, will “ber”or “banger” give you the same feeling like the other go-to cuss words like f**k or b***h give you and even Maclean doesn’t think so. She has the grip of the fact that her discovery will get easily ignored in the peak points of emotions like frustration or anger. 

One thing is for sure, you won't be screaming out "ber" or "banger" the next time your laptop shuts down before you have saved your work.