Toe in the Water

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Whatsaname

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Whatsaname

JayNaNoOhNo is currently running The Daily Poem and her latest prompt concerns Lethologica. Which, as I’m sure we didn’t know, is the temporary inability to retrieve a specific word. Apparently, it’s also called “tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.”

This is something that I have an increasing familiarity with, especially when writing. I can know exactly what I want to write and then, seconds later, when I come to the point of typing the most important word, I find it’s gone. It matters not that I knew the word mere moments ago, somehow it has departed my brain and refuses to return.

Of course, I can think of plenty of words that mean approximately, or even almost exactly, the same. But that won’t do - not while I know that the precise word exists and has to be used. I’m picky like that.

At that point, I usually resort to Andrea, defining the word to her and waiting while she cycles through the possibilities. Sometimes it’s possible to get Google to do the same. So it’s not an insurmountable problem. Just time-wasting, that’s all.

But it’s as nothing compared to Andrea’s experience of the phenomenon. Hers is very different from my sudden absence of the word. She finds that some other word has pushed its way in front of the chosen one and now insists on being said before the right one can be said.

With her, it’s a matter of speech, not writing, and she cannot use the chosen word until she has spoken the imposter. So she might ask someone how their refrigerator is doing, instead of enquiring about their grandson’s health. And the use of the wrong word immediately releases the original choice and it can be said. Which means that she can then explain that she didn’t mean “refrigerator” and understanding is restored.

It seems that this lethologica is a complex thing and can take many forms. The fact that it happens most often when I’m writing should have made me aware of the fact. But Andrea’s experience shows that it can be entirely the other way round as well. Certainly worth further investigation, methinks.


Word count: 356