Annoying (a little scary) to be in the middle of a conversation, story, joke and come to a screeching halt because of a blanked out word. The concept is there, just not the specific word, so a Search using synonyms or situation really helps. Too bad this doesn't apply to "auto pilot," standing at the frig for 10 seconds asking self what I came for or looking for where i laid (just Searched lay-laid) the glasses or remotes. Other DUers have validated with "mindfulness."

...has been on the tip of my tongue for decades suddenly disappeared from my brain. I was able to dig up a substitute quickly, but it was disturbing. Obviously the word came back, but still...

I am beginning to be seriously concerned.

But the words you cite here are extra hard!

...interests make it important to know.

The word "polymorph" is not something that occurs regularly in my profession, but it is something of which I would expect everyone in my field to know what's being described.

I'm sure if someone said the word to me, I'd immediately understand but the problem was that I couldn't say the word, find it, although I had the physical situation clearly in mind. I think I mumbled something awkward like "crystal structural variant" and hoped no one noticed the fudge, and said "You mean polymorph?" It might have been embarrassing.

It's as if a member of an orchestra forgets the b flat major scale. I don't know that scale but a musician should.

It could be a symptom of a greater dysfunction, but it is more probable that it is simply a function of aging. Happens to me all the time, and I'm at least as cognitive as DJT. (In fact, my PCP had me take a cognitive test the last time I had an exam. Really annoying test: they show you randomly-placed symbols, then blank the screen and you're supposed to remember the sequence of them. Hell, my short-term memory has always been crap, I was pissed I could only remember six symbols, but couldn't do seven).

-- Mal

It's like, they're also stopped in their tracks saying to themselves, "What is wrong with this person and should I be engaging with him?!" or "Should I be calling for help?!"

Happens to me more than I would wish.

I also sometimes can't remember what I went to the kitchen for. I read a thing (sorry, no link because it was long ago and, duh, I don't remember, lol) that said when you go someplace in the house to do something, when you leave the room where the thought was born, you leave the thought there in the room. And then you get to the kitchen, doubting your sanity, because that thought got left behind. I don't know if that's real but I'm not gonna lie, it gives me comfort!

The missing word is a *specific" one, with synonyms being rejected, on the basis of I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it.

that concept doesn't sound so simple to me!

Nothing quite like starting a sentence and forgetting the word you were going to end it with!

I once "forgot" Babe Ruth's name. Had to do an amazing trek through the neural pathways to come up with it. Yes, the knowledge is still there, but the connection has snapped.

I like to think of the brain as a bunch of little boxes connected by wires. Sometimes the main wire breaks, and you have to re-route the pathways to get back to the contents of the box. This became very apparent to me after my stroke, when the entire right side of my body forgot how to function. Had to re-learn how to walk, to write, etc. Good news is it only took a couple of weeks before I was functioning more-or-less normally. For a given value of "normal." My signature, for example, completely changed from pre-stroke.

-- Mal

...I will never againg forget what "Pareto Analysis" is and in fact, it inspires me to include it in some "before I die, I wanted to share..." documents I'm preparing for my son, the engineer.

The thing I was taught is when you're communicating with others, speak to their level whenever possible. Sometimes that means dumbing it down. If you're in a technical field or a field that has it's own terminology then it wouldn't be unusual for the word or phrase.

What I've found is when people use a technical word, unusual or little known word they're either trying to distract or pretend they're smarter than you because they know most people won't admit to not knowing what tor won't ask what that means. I like to ask what they mean troll them for being BSers.

...What's it mean?"

It's a great tool for building one's vocabulary. Sometimes people wouldn't actually know what they were saying, but it was relatively rare. I used to make a point of looking up every word I didn't know when I read it when I was a kid. I also loved to be corrected when I used a word incorrectly, or - as was more common since I was born in Brooklyn - pronounced them awfully.

Now, of course, we have the internet and google, in some ways faster, but a little less fun.

When I was a boy, for one of my birthdays, I asked my parents for the Webster's unabridged, and they got me one. Sometimes I'd just sit for hours and leaf through the pages.

And then of course, when I got older, and learned about libraries - my town didn't have one - I came across The Oxford English Dictionary, all those beautiful volumes. It's sort of sad that it's now electronic, I think, again, faster, but something is lost.

I believe English is the richest language on Earth, the one with the most words. I personally revel in that, so many ways to say things, so many nuances.

It also handles technical subjects quite well.

And then there's literature, our language formed around that great inventor of words, Shakespeare.

My joy in reading Thomas Pynchon, or at some points Joseph Heller, was stumbling across magnificent words I didn't know.

To each his or her or their own, I guess.