Find the word you can't think of

June 27, 2009 8:26 PM

Tip of My Tongue: Find that word you've been thinking about all day but just can't seem to remember.
posted by Miko (26 comments total)

Impressive, but it's lacking the ever useful Mom-celebrity translator.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:34 PM on June 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

But of course right now, I can't think of a word I can't think of to test it.
posted by bwanabetty at 8:43 PM on June 27, 2009 [4 favorites]

Am I doing it wrong?

Starts with: s
Ends with: k
Rhymes with: luck
Search results: Can't find any words that match your criteria ;-(
posted by rahnefan at 8:48 PM on June 27, 2009

This is fabulous. I'm studying for the GRE right now and I'm getting this sensation a lot where I know the definition and all the letters in it but can't for the life of me remember the word itself. This will be so much better than flipping through dozens of flashcards.
posted by lilac girl at 9:04 PM on June 27, 2009

Fixed!
posted by cortex at 9:11 PM on June 27, 2009

So it's come to this?
posted by Ron Thanagar at 9:13 PM on June 27, 2009

Thanks, 'Tex.

So it's come to this?

Hey, we're all gettin' older.

I've come to fully embrace the idea that when you can't remember shit ("suffer from CRS") it's not because you're getting old and befuddled, but because you just plan have so much stuff crowded in your brain that it takes time to find the correct file. The older we get, the more we resemble big ol' Army bureaucrat's desks, pre-computerization, with arcane filing-and-piling systems. We can't always immediately put our hands on the right word or idea, but given suffiicient time, it's all there.
posted by Miko at 9:20 PM on June 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

My only fear is that the url for this website will be the word on the tip of my tongue when I need it next.
posted by rubah at 9:22 PM on June 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Another true best of the web p.. um... Oh shoot, I had it. It was right there. Po... Oh, nevermind.
posted by bz at 9:37 PM on June 27, 2009

pls kll me nw

You figure it out.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 9:38 PM on June 27, 2009

my god, this thing is like a game shark for online scrabble
posted by Kiablokirk at 9:41 PM on June 27, 2009 [5 favorites]

I've come to fully embrace the idea that when you can't remember shit ("suffer from CRS") it's not because you're getting old and befuddled, but because you just plan have so much stuff crowded in your brain that it takes time to find the correct file.

Heh. Exactly.

It's easy to take for granted what a goddam marvel the human linguistic capacity is, that we manage to accomplish a kind of shame over merely suboptimal, occasionally error-prone recall within a vocabulary of tens of thousands of lexemes that we mostly acquired during a period when we didn't even have a conscious understanding of the idea of formal language acquisition.

It is deeply, powerful fucked up that we can even parse and store and recall and deploy words in the first place; that we occasionally have trouble doing so is the kind of trifle that only a nutso species like homo sapiens could manage to fret about. Such is the human condition.
posted by cortex at 10:02 PM on June 27, 2009 [7 favorites]

This is actually quite useful for branding/marketing purposes.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:02 PM on June 27, 2009

Starts with: alz
Contains: heim
Ends with: er's

Word meaning:
Word 1: forget
Word 2: disease
Word 3: old

Can't find any words that match your criteria ;-(
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:07 PM on June 27, 2009 [3 favorites]

Thanks for this, as I've been trying to remember a word and it's been driving me mad. I was hiking the other day and saw a stack of rocks. I pointed it out to my boyfriend and lost the word for it just as I was about to tell him what it was called. Nothing came up for "stack" and "rocks" but "pile" and "stones" gave me, finally, CAIRN.
posted by Locative at 12:04 AM on June 28, 2009

Thanks for the disambiguator!
posted by Davenhill at 12:43 AM on June 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

Oh my god, thank you for this. It helped me figure out the word "Galantine" as some sort of fancy, antiquated meat dish. Of course, now I can't for the life of me remember what it was that I wanted the word for in the first place, but at least I can remember that I was right in thinking it was called a galant something. Bookmarked like nobody's business.
posted by Mizu at 3:52 AM on June 28, 2009

Thanks, Miko! I appreciate any tools that will help me to - um - just a sec - reconnoiter the right word to um ... countervail the idea that I am a ... um ... a desipient blatherskite. I am all for any tools that will camouflage the ever-encroaching propinquity of my dotage.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:43 AM on June 28, 2009 [2 favorites]

My standby has always been thesaurus.reference.com, but this will be a welcome companion site on my Bookmars bar.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:16 AM on June 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Just in response to people who are putting in incredibly obvious choices- it doesn't want you to know the word, that's the point. So that probably explains why it returns nothing.

I will have to bookmark this now. It would have been useful for that time I forgot the word 'porch'.
posted by Askiba at 9:52 AM on June 28, 2009

Bookmarked! Thanks, Miko - my increasingly swiss-cheesed brain needs all the help it can get!
posted by Quietgal at 10:22 AM on June 28, 2009

I once forgot the word Laundromat. All I could think of is lavanderia, which is weird as I don't speak Spanish, and they're all called "washateria" near me. I tried to find the word Laundromat with what I remembered at the time, and the first two tries gave me "laundering" and the third gave me the right word.
posted by zinfandel at 10:30 AM on June 28, 2009

False to my prediction, I was able to remember the name of the site when I forgot the word 'superimpose' last night. However, I was not able to find it :( I just happened to remember it this morning!
posted by rubah at 11:15 AM on June 28, 2009

I've heard that the very act of "wracking your brain" makes it harder to get the word you are thinking of. Your best bet is to forget it and move on. Of course, that means that it will come back to you in a flash anywhere from five minutes to several days later, at which point you will be compelled to blurt it out.

Satisfying, though.
posted by Acey at 4:09 PM on June 28, 2009

*cough* That's "racking" your brain.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:45 PM on June 28, 2009

*cough* That's "racking" your brain.

Damn, there was a W on the tip of my tongue.
posted by Acey at 4:02 PM on June 29, 2009