For some time, I’ve stumbled when I try to come up with familiar words in conversation, or even while I’m writing. My mind freezes mid-sentence. If I’m talking to daughters Carolynn or Leslie, they give me time to think before they fill in my blanks. They always laugh — and so do I — in part because they forget words too, though admittedly not as often. It’s a common occurrence amongst my friends too, all of us “vintage” ladies. I’m relieved to know it’s not just an issue for the older generation.

This annoying problem has a name — I happened across it the other day:

lethologica.
leth-o-log-i-ca/ ,leTHe’lajeka/ noun RARE
The inability to remember a particular word or name. “He would grope for the words
and he often apologized for his lethologica”

Lethologica was first noted in the 1915 edition of Dorland’s American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (1915). Psychiatrist Carl Jung popularized around the same time.

Lethologica often occurs when when you’re trying to name a place, a famous person, or come up with a word you seldom use. You know you know, but the longer you try to think of the word, the more difficult it becomes. Your brain concentrates on you not remembering the word rather than helping you come up with it. “But it’s right on the tip of my tongue!” you say.

Try saying the alphabet slowly to jog your memory. Just now, sitting at my computer writing this post, I tried to think of … a TV show … a program I stopped watching because, while I sometimes knew the answers, I couldn’t spit them out quickly enough … and right now I can’t even name the show … A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J … Jeopardy. Yes-s-s-s!

Good to know that experts say occasionally having difficulty with words, forgetting acquaintances’ names, or worrying about your own memory (although your family doesn’t) are signs of normal aging. Lethologica is likely not a sign of dementia.

If you think that forgetting words mid-sentence might predict dementia, there’s good news. On June 6, 2024, Queen Mary University of London released news of a new method, the first of its kind, for predicting dementia with over 80 percent accuracy and up to nine years before a diagnosis. The new method provides a more accurate way to predict dementia than memory tests or measurements of brain shrinkage, two commonly used methods for diagnosing dementia.

Good news indeed!

The words we rarely use, including proper names, are the ones we often forget.