Looking it up just kinda feels like cheating, y’know? Or at least throwing in the towel.

  • exixx@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    There’s probably a word for it in German or Swedish. I bet it’s long and hard to pronounce, maybe with a non-English pronunciation symbol.

    • jasep@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      10 months ago

      Google translate says “Zungenspitze” is the German word for “tip of tongue”.

        • chris@l.roofo.cc
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          Let me rephrase that: I never heard one. There is a word for tip of the tongue but not for the concrete situation OP described. I mean the possibility to just look up stuff wherever you are is a very recent development so it makes sense that a word that incorporates this isn’t invented yet.

          • blazeknave@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            Still don’t believe you. Just smash a sentence together or whatever y’all do. We need you. Latin doesn’t do this.

            • chris@l.roofo.cc
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              10 months ago

              I invented one for you:

              Zungenspitzendilemma, das

              When you have something stuck at the tip of your tongue, but looking it up feels like cheating.

              • blazeknave@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                10 months ago

                We’re best friends now. Do another one: “when an Internet stranger connects with you over an infinitesimally small and unlikely shared idea or experience, and for the first time in your life, you don’t feel alone on an earth with 7 billion humans, and you have a best friend”

  • lobelia581@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    sometimes it’s something that can’t be looked up like a song tune or a scene from a show. i tried searching once using humming and it didn’t work, but thankfully it only took a couple days for me to remember where it was from

    • Sigh_Bafanada@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      Once, I had a song in my head that I wasn’t able to remember much about. I posted on the /r/tipofmytongue community, letting them know that all I could remember was “eh, oppah”

      After a few incorrect guesses, somebody realized that it was Moby’s “Natural Blues”

  • DrRatso@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Generally it is literally called a “tip-of-the-tongue” state in psych literature. Presque vu is the “fancy” french term for it, and means almost seen, similar to deja vu (already seen).

    E: as a sidenote, I am fairly sure Vsauce had a video on this.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    10 months ago

    I thought the post title was a joke. Like you couldn’t remember the word you were thinking of to describe when you can’t think of a word.

  • fidodo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    10 months ago

    Is there a word for when there’s a word that’s on the tip of your tongue but it turns out the word doesn’t actually exist?

  • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    10 months ago

    I always experience a phenomenon in which no matter how hard I wrack my brain trying to think of the thing that’s on the tip of my tongue, as soon as I go to look it up or ask somebody, it suddenly comes to my mind right before they tell me the answer.

    • cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      Happens to me often with wordle. I take a screenshot to send my friend and show her that I’m stuck, and for some reason right after I send it, the answer comes to me.

      • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        Yes it happens to you too, isn’t it a weird phenomenon??

        like I wouldn’t be surprised if I could even predict the lottery Powerball numbers a fraction of a second before they are called out LOL