Sometimes you search for the word you want, and it's right there on the tip of your tongue, but you can't reach it for some reason. Sometimes you remember the word you want after the conversation has moved on, or maybe you put some other words together so someone will help you. When my daughter asked for a laundry rope, it took me a bit to figure out she wanted a clothesline. If you ask for a wet salad, someone else may step in and suggest soup. But what is the word for when you can't think of a word?
That is "lethologica." The word is made from two Greek terms that mean forget and word. Mental Floss goes over the history of lethologica and what scientists think may cause it. Another term is "lethonomia," which applies specifically to someone's name that you can't recall.
Then there's "loganamnosis," a somewhat related term that I strangely found in another article from a different source just minutes after reading the Mental Floss article. Loganamnosis is a term for when you experience lethologica or lethonomia, and then become so obsessed with remembering the word or name that you can no longer enjoy what you were doing when it happened. Has that ever happened to you?
It's nice to know that there are terms for such forgetting, but no one expects you to remember them all.
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