Liverpool, More than 50,000 years ago, humans began to speak and since then we have not been silent. Sometimes, however, we find it difficult to remember the name of an object, a place or a person we want to talk about. The technical term for this phenomenon is “lethologica.”
While severe word-finding difficulties can be caused by serious neurological problems, such as a stroke or dementia, occasional and temporary blanking is very common. Unsurprisingly, stress doesn't help and gets worse as we get older.
But what can we do if we come up empty and still want to keep the conversation going?
Well, there are different ways to approach this problem. We can hesitate, using so-called fillers like “ehm” and “uh” to buy some time, hoping that the correct word appears late but triumphant.
We can describe what we mean, hoping to get the message across. (Recently, it took me a moment to realize that the “flat things that look like donuts” my daughter was talking about were DVDs.)
We can even remember certain formal features of the word, such as the first letter or sound, or how many syllables it has, and generously offer these clues to the bewildered listener: “You know, this guy we met last week, I think.” His name starts with G.”
That's why we also call it tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. We're almost there, and our brain is doing its best to use all the stored information (for example, about the pronunciation and meaning of the word) to find something useful to say, even if it's not the right word. itself.
Sometimes this results in us making up words on the spot (called “spontaneous coinage” or “ad-hoc” in linguistics). You may not find them in the dictionary, but they usually make sense in context.
Even young children already make them up in an attempt to put into practice what they have already learned about language, as when a six-year-old boy referred to a bottle of women's shampoo as "ladies' stuff" in a study on games. of language. .
My favorite example in this category, however, is a Tweet about a German customer in a Welsh pub who couldn't remember the word "cutlery" and politely asked for "food weapons."
Last but not least, we can use ready-made placeholders like "thingamajig", "whatchamacallit" (for an object) or "what's-her-name" (for a person).
Apparently the struggle to find the right word is real and has been for some time, because the Oxford English Dictionary has its own category for these terms, called “thing or person whose name is forgotten or unknown.” It includes 64 entries and some records date back to the early Middle English period (1100-1300).
Not all of them are still used today. The last documented use of the strangely evocative “whiblin” was in 1652, for example, and “jiggumbob” is marked obsolete.
Others, like “gizmo” or “doodah,” are still going strong, and you can even buy “Whatchamacallits” and “Whozeewhatzits,” which are chocolate bars made by Hershey's.
There are threads on Reddit dedicated to collecting placeholder words in English and from around the world. They are worth exploring, with gems like “doomaflitchie”, the Dutch “huppeldepup” and the German “dingsdabumsda”.
Next time you use "whatchamacallit," appreciate it because your brain is doing the best it can.
By the way: do you still remember the technical term for not remembering the correct word that I introduced at the beginning of this article?
Yeah? Congratulations!
No? Well, you and your brain know how to handle this. (The conversation) AMS
A.M.S.
A.M.S.
While severe word-finding difficulties can be caused by serious neurological problems, such as a stroke or dementia, occasional and temporary blanking is very common. Unsurprisingly, stress doesn't help and gets worse as we get older.
But what can we do if we come up empty and still want to keep the conversation going?
Well, there are different ways to approach this problem. We can hesitate, using so-called fillers like “ehm” and “uh” to buy some time, hoping that the correct word appears late but triumphant.
We can describe what we mean, hoping to get the message across. (Recently, it took me a moment to realize that the “flat things that look like donuts” my daughter was talking about were DVDs.)
We can even remember certain formal features of the word, such as the first letter or sound, or how many syllables it has, and generously offer these clues to the bewildered listener: “You know, this guy we met last week, I think.” His name starts with G.”
That's why we also call it tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. We're almost there, and our brain is doing its best to use all the stored information (for example, about the pronunciation and meaning of the word) to find something useful to say, even if it's not the right word. itself.
Sometimes this results in us making up words on the spot (called “spontaneous coinage” or “ad-hoc” in linguistics). You may not find them in the dictionary, but they usually make sense in context.
Even young children already make them up in an attempt to put into practice what they have already learned about language, as when a six-year-old boy referred to a bottle of women's shampoo as "ladies' stuff" in a study on games. of language. .
My favorite example in this category, however, is a Tweet about a German customer in a Welsh pub who couldn't remember the word "cutlery" and politely asked for "food weapons."
Last but not least, we can use ready-made placeholders like "thingamajig", "whatchamacallit" (for an object) or "what's-her-name" (for a person).
Apparently the struggle to find the right word is real and has been for some time, because the Oxford English Dictionary has its own category for these terms, called “thing or person whose name is forgotten or unknown.” It includes 64 entries and some records date back to the early Middle English period (1100-1300).
Not all of them are still used today. The last documented use of the strangely evocative “whiblin” was in 1652, for example, and “jiggumbob” is marked obsolete.
Others, like “gizmo” or “doodah,” are still going strong, and you can even buy “Whatchamacallits” and “Whozeewhatzits,” which are chocolate bars made by Hershey's.
There are threads on Reddit dedicated to collecting placeholder words in English and from around the world. They are worth exploring, with gems like “doomaflitchie”, the Dutch “huppeldepup” and the German “dingsdabumsda”.
Next time you use "whatchamacallit," appreciate it because your brain is doing the best it can.
By the way: do you still remember the technical term for not remembering the correct word that I introduced at the beginning of this article?
Yeah? Congratulations!
No? Well, you and your brain know how to handle this. (The conversation) AMS
A.M.S.
A.M.S.
