Tip of the Tongue

Universality

Cognitive psychologist Bennett Schwartz examined fifty-one languages and found that forty-five of them include expressions using the word tongue to describe the TOT state.

Tip of the Tongue is very frustrating, no? Because of the medication I take, I have either TOT or lethologica almost everyday at some point. I guess it's a sacrifice I'm will to make to have less pain in my life. As I've been reading these articles on Wikipedia, I realized I also speak quite a few spoonerisms

A spoonerism is a an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched.

• "We'll have the hags flung out" ("flags hung")
• "a half-warmed fish" ("half-formed wish")
  

There are quite a few inappropriate examples on those pages, but these two get the point across. And last, but not least, I change complete word order around. I haven't found the term for that one, yet. But it is funny at times. Sometimes, I don't realize I do it until my family laughs at me. Other times, I have a sense of wrongness about what I said, and I ask or they are already correcting me.

Posted by micah on August 5, 2008 06:43 PM