# Your goofiest replacement for a word you momentarily forgot
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 16, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176 "2009-02-16T22:00:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/1 "2009-02-16T22:00:30Z")
go-uppy thing = Escalator
Next?
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/2 "2009-02-16T22:22:17Z")
I’ll go ahead and get these out of the way so that really creative types can get right into it.
Whodathoughtit
Thingamajig
Doololly
Thingum
Grommet
Gazinta
Whatsit
Giffensnatch
Plunxtrum
Frabostat
Dweezum
Jamfscratch
Cranth
Blimplet
Hyperzootle
Dwelk
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### Author:  [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/3 "2009-02-16T22:37:02Z")
Oooojahmaflip
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### Author:  [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/4 "2009-02-16T23:56:13Z")
I and up just swaping other words in and out all the time and leave the real one as an exercise for the listener. Sometimes by brain can’t keep up with my mouth 🙂
The favorite of friends and family is we were going to go to the Cheesecake Factory, which, for some reason, I could not recall the name of. So instead I called it “The French Cake Palace”. SO now, that’s all any of us call it.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/5 "2009-02-17T00:46:10Z")
bubbly wine for champagne.
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### Author:  [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/6 "2009-02-17T00:48:37Z")
A friend of mine worked at the Airport. One day I inexplicably forgot that word, and asked him “Hey, how’s work at the … Airplane Factory?”. The weird thing is that he worked in a bank branch in the terminal, and did not repair planes or anything of the sort. Of course, now several of us refer to any airport that way.
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### Author:  [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/7 "2009-02-17T00:49:45Z")
You know those water worm things - the slippery toys that are water-filled plastic bags? My husband called it a machine once. It’s a lot of things but not a machine.
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### Author:  [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/8 "2009-02-17T01:06:15Z")
I once called the vacuum cleaner a lawnmower; my Darling Marcie seized on that and now, whenever I fumble for a word, she tells me the thing in question is a lawnmower.
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/9 "2009-02-17T01:09:53Z")
Yer makin’ me giggle, that’s what I was going for… thanks! More! (French Cake Palace forever!)
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### Author:  [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/10 "2009-02-17T01:52:50Z")
Ha! I do refer to objects in that manner (“go-uppy thing” for “escalator” is very much like a description I would us, though I haven’t done that one yet) _on purpose_ so that when I start to lose my mind, no one will notice.
For example, “climby thing” for rope, stairs or ladder.
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### Author:  [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/11 "2009-02-17T02:02:48Z")
Just… “ **THING** ”. And that goes for **all** parts of speech!
As in " I need to get a… _thing_" (pointing at longish hair).😃
Happens a lot with me.
Q
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/12 "2009-02-17T04:33:01Z")
I sometimes refer to people whose name momentarily escapes me as "What’s-his-"prominent physical or psychological feature. I once had occasion to refer to an ex, for example, as what’s-his-neurosis.
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### Author:  [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/13 "2009-02-17T04:59:53Z")
Huh, I call all folks who’s names I’ve forgotten whats-his-butt or whats-her-butt, but **matt** has a much cooler version.
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### Author:  [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/14 "2009-02-17T05:51:39Z")
I frequently forget simple words like door. I’ll be talking and go “open that thing in the wall…you know, that hole in the wall where you walk…but not into the wall, into the hole in the wall, and it opens” and they look at me like I’ve got something worng with me.
I just usually describe what the thing does until I remember the actual word.
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### Author:  [@Taber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taber)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/15 "2009-02-17T06:26:31Z")
I was playing catchphrase with some friends. The word they had to guess was “bug collector.” What one friend guessed was “bugatorium”
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### Author:  [@Seeker\_of\_Truth\_and\_Beauty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seeker_of_Truth_and_Beauty)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/16 "2009-02-17T07:17:43Z")
Doomaflajee. (I think I spelled it properly…)
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/17 "2009-02-17T07:29:07Z")
My usual method is to just go ‘uh, eh, er…’ while miming how you use the forgotten item.
I pray I never forget the word ‘dildo’…
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### Author:  [@Dinaroozie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinaroozie)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/18 "2009-02-17T12:09:44Z")
Just today at work I referred to programmers as “non-artist people”. And yes, I am a programmer.
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/19 "2009-02-17T13:27:09Z")
How often do you hear (I pray you don’t actually _use_ yourself) _ **thing** _ as a verb? A guy I used to work with would always be _thinging_ things, and just as often he would “take and thing” whatever it was.
Every once in a while I will almost say “take and do” or “up and do” when I will catch myself in time to avoid what I consider the ultimate faux pas.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-goofiest-replacement-for-a-word-you-momentarily-forgot/486176/20 "2009-02-17T13:38:21Z")
When I was psych nursing one night I wrote in the report that “Patient A suffered a small contusion when he fell from his sub-upper-extremity-vertical-support apparatus.” Of course I was talking about crutches. It was not well received by the senior staff. Nor was my reference to an amputee being found “crawling on all three and a halfs” in the middle of the night.
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