The other day I couldn’t think of a word.
It’s a texture. It’s a material. A type of cloth.
Men shouldn't be seen dead wearing it.
Linen!
That’s the devil.
Obviously, the word pinged back. It usually does. But for those few seconds (that felt like hours), my brain was doing that strange thing where it gives you almost everything except the thing you asked for.
You can describe it.
You can see it.
You know where you heard it, or where you last used it.
You know exactly what you mean.
But the actual word?
Gone.
Psychologists call this the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, or a TOT state. It sounds like something your gran would say, but it’s a proper term in psychology.
It describes that moment when you know you know a word, but for some reason your brain won’t hand it over.
It’s also extremely common. Phew.
Which is good to know, because the moment a word disappears, it’s easy to give the feeling a meaning it doesn’t deserve.
‘I’m getting worse.’
‘My memory is terrible.’
‘What’s wrong with me?’
Most of the time, nothing.
Your brain isn’t broken. It’s just busy.
I love studying language. And I’ve discovered it’s both powerful and complicated.
Most of the time you take it for granted. You think of something and the word appears.
But sometimes the connection gets a bit jammed. Not lost, just temporarily unavailable.
So, what can you do?
First, try the first letter trick.
Don’t chase the whole word. Ask yourself, ‘What does it start with?’ Then slowly work through the alphabet. A? B? C? Sometimes your brain just needs a tiny spark.
But use letter phonics (baby letters) ‘ah’ not ‘ay’, ‘bu’ not ‘bee’, ‘cu’ not ‘see’.
That can be enough to get the retrieval system fired up.
If that doesn’t work, say wrong words out loud.
This sounds odd, but it works for me. If the word is ‘linen’, you might say cotton, canvas, muslin, denim, creasey stuff. Nearby words and descriptions can nudge the right word forward. It’s like sending a search party into the same neighbourhood.
And if that doesn’t work, stop trying.
Walk away. Make a cup of tea. Do something else. There’s a lovely moment when the word pops back five minutes later, turning up as if it’s proud of itself.
The next time the word disappears, don’t panic.
It happens.
Your brain isn’t failing.
It’s just taking the scenic route.
Be Brilliant!
Michael
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