The other day I had a brain malfunction and for about an hour, I could not think of the word “audition”.
This ever happen to you?
Last night, I couldn’t remember “mantle”. Like the one above our fireplace. I settled on ledge.
I hate it when that happens in front of people. I just tell people I had a brain f… f… smelly.
Happens to me all the damn time. It’s worse when I’m tired and stressed, and it’s the same for all my friends. So, during exam time, our conversations consist of vague hand gestures and lots of “you know, the thing?” Oddly, we all understand each other perfectly well.
This week I was trying to tell someone that the water in the kettle was hot and ready for coffee:
“The water’s dry now. Oh, hell, not dry! I mean soft. No, dammit, hot. It’s hot!”
Every day of every year that I can remember.
If I have to give a talk I write the whole thing out and then highlight the words that I stumble on. I then make crip notes of what I want to talk about and make sure that the highlighted words are included. I started doing this when I realized I stumbled on the same damn words each time I tried to use them.
That’s what happens when you insist on using a fancy Latin-based word and good old Anglo-Saxon words like “hearing” just aren’t good enough for you.
What I find most frustrating is when I’ve almost got the word that I’m trying to think of, but some other word is blocking it out.
Once I spent hours trying to come up with the word “speculum.” I kept thinking “spatula,” and it was as if “spatula” was preventing the light from shining on “speculum.” “Spatula” was wedged into the metaphorical view-hole that would have permitted me to examine and choose the right word.
Yeah, but you feel really good when you finally do think of it.
This happens to me all the time. Worse, I usually get a mental sense of what I think the word is, which often turns out to be completely wrong.
Me: “Regardless, he’s always so… what’s the word I’m thinking of?”
Friends: “We don’t know…”
Me: “Uhh…uhh…it starts with a b, sounds a little like ‘French’”
Friends: “Err…he’s so…bench?”
Me: “Uhh…uhh…condescending, that’s it!”
Friends: strange look
I once spent a long time trying to help a guy think of the word “armillary.” He said it was “kinda like a sundial.” The quest was not helped by the fact that the guy started by saying that the word he wanted sounded like “Gillespie.”
Once I finally came up with “armillary,” I bitched him out for having misled me, and he maintained that “armillary” does sound like “Gillespie.” Auggh. You can’t argue with an idiot. It doesn’t work, and it annoys the idiot.
One of my favorite sitcom quotes, trying to remember the name of a movie: “something about a tree… up in a tree… birds of a feather!” Oddly enough, that made sense to me.
Seriously, happens to me all the time. There’s even a word for it, but I forgot what the word is. 
Lexico… umm… oh, lethologica! Hey I was close. But it’s usually easier to just refer to it as CRS.
As I find myself saying all the time, is there anyone this doesn’t happen to? I forget extremely common words at times.
Yes. I find it very, um,…
I remeber once I was with a friend and the word I couldn’t think of at the time was “Ambiguous.”
My friend was even MORE dumbfounded than I was because the conversation went something like this:
Me: “What is that word I’m looking for; it’s neither here nor there, or…”
Him: “OH! Green Eggs and Ham?!”
Me:" 
dude what the hell are you talking about?"
Him: "You know, “I will not eat them here, I will not eat them there, I will not eat them anywhere…”
Me: “dude I’m looking for a word; not the tittle to a damn Dr. Seuss book!”
Both of us: “Bwahahahahaaa!!”
It happens to me the most when I’m writing, and it’s never a difficult word. Thank god for the thesaurus built into Word.
No, I love it.
… well, I love it when it happens to other people… then I distract them, by pretending to help them think of words, but actually confusing them more…
But thats just me.
I find that even if I can’t remember the word, I can usually remember what letter it starts with and sometimes more. I have conversations like this a lot:
Me:“I need to get more money. I should…uh…dammit…what’s the word?”
Them:“What? Sell drugs?”
Me:“No! It starts with a ‘C’, I’m pretty sure”
Them:“What? Cowboy? You want to be a cowboy?”
Me:“What? NO! I’m pretty sure there’s an ‘ate’ in it too.”
Them:“HEY EVERYONE! CHAD WANTS TO BE A COWBOY!”
Me:“You’re an idiot”
For some reason when I can’t find the right word it usually involves a noun. Why? I don’t know. But it does allow me to substitute a nice generic word like “stuff” and just move on with what I was saying. Which let to a conversation in college where I asked a friend, “What is the rationale behind putting stuff on the thing?”
What’s really amazing is what happens when two people both can’t think of the same word, especially if they have no help handy.
A friend and I came up with about a hundred different kinda-close words over the course of hours before finally–“Gazebo!”
I love threads like this. They’re so reassuring.
TJdude825, unfortunately it often doesn’t happen until hours after the conversation in which the mind blank occurred.