3 ms·

I am fluent in two languages, and I have encountered the exact problem described in the article: I am trying to recall a word, and find that I can't. At times I

I am fluent in two languages, and I have encountered the exact problem described in the article: I am trying to recall a word, and find that I can't. At times I can recall the beginning letter, even the rough sound of the word, but not the word itself. Then the word will come to me a few moments later in a flash. The embarrassing part is when this happens during a conversation; I have resorted to filler sentences or repeating myself as my brain searches frantically for that right word. I used to worry if it was some kind of early warning of Alzheimers ... good to know this phenomenon has a more benign explanation too.

whacked_new 17y ago
> I have resorted to filler sentences or repeating myself as my brain searches frantically for that right word. I have gotten into the habit of first declaring what the word starts with, sounds like, and approximates. This lets the listener help me out. Then I usually use a metaphor, which is often inappropriate: "how much groping in the dark did you have when you [started using this analysis software]?" Then I get weird looks but you end up grabbing their attention, sometimes they find the word for you, and other times the vocabulary comes back to you a few sentences later. In the above example, I didn't find the word, but thankfully the point made its way across. It was further weird because this was at an MRI scanner, so somebody was literally "groping in the dark." I also remember embarrassingly forgetting the word for "fly" (bug), pointing around in the air, and said, "the, the, the, thing." I use pronouns lavishly too: did you cut a hole in the thing to put the thing in the thing? --> did you cut a hole in the wood block to put the slab's protrusion into the wood block?