can someone tell me the word for "I am trying to express a word matching the situation, the word is at the tip of the tongue but unable to speak it out" no.. not related to stammering.. the situation for any normal guy trying to express something..
Welcome to you, nagrao. When we know we know a word but can't call it to mind to say it, we often say, "My mind went blank", or "I have drawn a blank". Hope that helps.
My expression for it is "incipient Alzheimers" but maybe that's an exaggeration. Sadly, it happens to me much more often than it used to. It's certainly frustrating, and the more you try to remember the word you're groping for, the less successful you are. You have to just give it up and wait. When I do that, the word I want usually comes to mind in an hour or so, but often that's too late.
Have you ever noticed the frustration felt by people who have had a stroke and suffer temporary aphasia? That happened to my grandfather and I remember vividly when he first began to recover speech. After 2 days of being unable to speak, he finally got out, "G-g-g-g-goddammit!"
if you can't remember the "right" word, you are suffering from lethologica (the inability to remember names is lethonomia). the more medical terminology for difficulty in finding the right words or remembering names is anomia.
here is an interesting British slang word for a "what's it's name": oojah a Freudian slip is known as a parapraxis and "speaking in tongues" is more properly called glossolalia
{gotta get more stuff into my postaday}
by the way, Lethe, in Greek mythology, was the river of forgetfulness in Hades; the dead drank from Lethe upon their arrival in the underworld.
my thought on the subject would be that the very existence of a word descriptive of the phenomenon you've illustrated would be obviated by the fact that, ipso facto, one should not be able to recall it at will.
that being said, how about letholalia? or lethogramma?
EDIT: Darn you, tsuwm. and i typo'ed "litho" as opposed to "letho".... *sigh*
Lethe, in Greek mythology, was the river of forgetfulness in Hades;
As I recall, one drinks from the Lethe, to forget the world of the living, just before crossing the better-known Styx, with a coin in the mouth. What I don't get is how "lethargic," which comes from "Lethe," ended up meaning sluggish or sleepy, rather than forgetful. In the myths, does drinking from the Lethe make one drowsy? Or has the word just transmogrified since the days of Orpheous?
The neighboring stream to the Lethe was the Mnemosyne, the river of memory - which is where we get mnemonic - which seems much truer to its source.
here is an interesting British slang word for a "what's it's name": oojah
[tugging forelock emoticon] I haven't heard "oojah" used, but have heard "oojah-ma-flip", "thing-a-ma-jig" "thingummy" "thingummy-bob" "wassisname" "whatchamacallit". And I learnt the very useful French (possibly Swiss French) phrase "machin-truc-chose" which effectively means "thing-thing-thing"
hyla's lethe-->lethargic and Mnemosyne-->mnemonic led me to wonder what other common words were derived from the rivers separating Hades from the living world (i was thinking perhaps "stigma" is derived somehow from Stygian/Styx?) unfortunately, Google turned up only a ton of anime (Sailor Moon) links, and now i'm curious about the names of the rivers themselves; my search yielded Acheron - the river of woe; Cocytus - the river of lamentation; Phlegethon - the river of fire; Lethe - the river of forgetfulness; Styx - the river of hate, but mentioned Mnemosyne only as one of the Muses who guarded the river of memory. the river itself is not named (or it is simply Mnemosyne?). has anyone a good link that will make this clear?
forgotten books Thanks indeed, Mav and WOW; I see I'm a member of another club. Just a couple days ago I paid $3.50 for a magazine and when I started reading it realized I had already bought and read it earlier in this very month. At one time I had 3 different copies of a P.D. James novel which I kept buying thinking I had not yet read it.
Re-read books A really good book is one you will want to read a second time, even though you know how it comes out. A great book is one you will read 3, 4 or more times (or every couple years or so). A mystery novel/story which you read over and over is a great work of literature, and I have a large number of them which I have read 10 or more times and expect to keep on reading every so often. A serious reader is one who can read a book more than once and enjoy it. We are a vanishing breed already (seems as though few young people read books much any more for pleasure) and may get even scarcer as the net and the TV and talking books replace our dear, cherished hard-copy books.
Dear bridget96: Interesting that Phlegethon and phlogiston, are the opposites of phlegmatic and phlegm. The first two are hot, and the second two are cold.
A serious reader is one who can read a book more than once and enjoy it.
Can you still consider yourself a serious reader if the reason you enjoy the book is that you don't remember the plot or the characters from the previous readings (even though you do remember having read it)? Since my retention leaves something to be desired, I'm beginning to think that what I enjoy is the process of reading. Is that weird?
An inchoate thought seems to fit the term, IMHO; maybe even an incipient one. I know, it's not just one word, as has already been posted, but inchoate seems appropriate to me.
I stick by "um" as the word most often used by persons whose tongues have been caught in the headlights, but someone who knows French might mint a new bit of blabbery on the lines of faux pa (no matter how it's spelled). I thought one meaning "empty mouthed" or "clipped tongue" or something would be good. (I believe I've often heard my own tongue-tipped words referred to as "idiot" by loved ones.) As long as we're at it, what about one for spellings on the tip of one's fingers?
Can anyone correctly quote the a sentence from one of Emily Dickinson's letters? My books are not accessible right now. Close as I can get is, "To live is so astonishing, it hardly leaves time for anything else."
Since it's on the tip of my tongue, I thought this as good a place as any.
This is Binky, wishing you a pleasant from the rings of Saturn, signing off.
Not at all. I love to read to the extent that I spend a good deal of time reading stuff that isn't worth the time, effort or expense. If I'm at the table alone, as when eating what little breakfast I eat (my wife is out of the house before I get up), I find myself reading labels on bottles, women's shoe catalogs waiting to be discarded, etc.
so does this mean i'm not the only one in the world with a habit of reading the labels on my shampoo bottles as i wait the requisite 60 seconds for my conditioner to take effect?? do any of you go so far as to say the words in your head, quickly, to see if you can make it all the way down the list without stumbling? (try saying cocomidopropyl hydroxysultane three times fast). even Green shampoos have wonderfully complex ingredient lists
so does this mean i'm not the only one in the world with a habit of reading the labels on my shampoo bottles as i wait the requisite 60 seconds for my conditioner to take effect?? do any of you go so far as to say the words in your head, quickly, to see if you can make it all the way down the list without stumbling?
No, no. The proper way to read a shampoo bottle is to see if each letter of the alphabet appears at least once. I thought everybody knew that .
guilty too-- One of my favorite memories of my son, was one sunday morning he was about 8 maybe 10 months old. and he had been fed, burped and changed-- and now i was trying to read a bit of the sunday times but he kept fussing.
In fun, his father handed Benjamin a section of the Times-- sports or classified, (junk sections in our house) and Benjamin pullled it up infront of him shook and wrinkled it, held it up for a while, shook and wrinkled it, and held it up again-- every 5 minutes or so! it kept him entertained for about a half hour! he was not an early reader-- but he learned early in his life that sunday morning entertainment included newspapers!
the best books are the ones that so take me in-- i forget where i am-- I remember reading a The Borne Identity (is that a Sydney Sheldon book?) and was so taken in by it.. that i was reading, and had to stop to pick up Benjamin from something--it was too late for him to walk home.. and as i walked out the back door, the light popped and went out, and i had to walk to the car in the dark, and i had a stray thought-- everyone who knew as much about the Borne identity had been killed..... And then i stopped and realize-- its just a book!
Seeing 3 "enthusiasts" in a row on this thread, I was curious as to how long it takes to get there (since I am still a VERY LONG way off ). After checking profiles for register date and number of posts, the award for Most Prolific Poster belongs to Inselpeter, hands down. Sparteye and Bridget96 both averaged a bit over 4 posts a day, while IP has more than 18! Onward to early Pooh-Bah-hood, David.
No, no. The proper way to read a shampoo bottle is to see if each letter of the alphabet appears at least once. I thought everybody knew that
Ah that's what I've been doing wrong. I try and match the words in the instructions on the shampoo in different languages. What is the Finnish or Chinese for rinse, for example?
Many years ago on BBC they had a parody of Charles De Gaulle giving one of his ponderous speeches, which started (how do any of us remember these things 30 years on??): "Cette sauce c'est une melange des epices particuliares" (or close) which was instantly recognisable to 70% (IMIU) of the UK population as the French writing on the paper round the neck of HP sauce bottles.
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). After checking profiles for register date and number of posts, the award for Most Prolific Poster belongs to Inselpeter, hands down. Sparteye and Bridget96 both averaged a bit over 4 posts a day, while IP has more than 18! Onward to early Pooh-Bah-hood, David.
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