Lethologica: When You Just Can't Remember That Word You Need

If you’ve ever found yourself scouring your brain for some common, everyday word, only to come up short, don’t worry – it literally happens to all of us.

Termed “lethologica”, or more often a “tip of the tongue” state or syndrome, “You can’t talk to anybody, in any culture, in any language, in any age group, that doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” Pomona College Linguistics and Cognitive Science professor Lise Abrams told the New York Times back in 2017. It’s even a phenomenon among sign language users – in which case, it’s known as “tip of the finger” syndrome.

Whenever it happens, though, it’s intensely frustrating. “The signs of it were unmistakable,” recorded a now-landmark 1966 study into the phenomenon by psychologists Roger Brown and David McNeill. "[The subject] would appear to be in mild torment, something like the brink of a sneeze, and if he found the word his relief was considerable.”

But why does it happen at all? Can we stop it? And should we be worried if it starts happening more often? Read on to find the… uh… you know. Anti-questions?

Why does lethologica occur?

Despite many decades of research into the syndrome, we’re still not exactly sure what causes tip-of-the-tongue syndrome.

Early theories, from the 1970s and 80s, suggested that it might be the result of our brains picking a wrong, but phonologically similar word first – “dissociation” rather than “diminuendo”, for example, or “sexton” rather than “sextant”. But by the 1990s, evidence for this idea had somewhat fizzled out, and researchers sought new explanations.

Some turned to theories of speech production itself for answers. Again, this is an area populated by a range of opinions and ideas, but there’s at least one thing researchers do agree on: using language is an incredibly complex process, with many points at which something might go wrong.

“Although theories differ, they generally agree that speakers must complete several stages of processing before articulation of a word begins and results in successful speech production,” wrote Abrams, with University of Florida psychology professor Danielle Davis, in a 2016 paper on the syndrome.

“Specifically, the speaker first chooses the underlying concept to be expressed, then undergoes the process of lexical selection by choosing an abstract word (lemma) that best reflects the concept’s meaning and specifies the appropriate syntactic properties, such as its grammatical class,” the pair explained. “Once selected, the lemma undergoes phonological encoding by transmitting activation to the word’s phonology, e.g., syllables and phonemes, so that the word can be articulated.”

If that’s the case, then a tip-of-the-tongue state is thought to occur when the first part of the process – the selection of the appropriate lemma – is completed successfully, but the last part, where you translate that lemma into noise, is not.

There’s some nice circumstantial evidence for this idea, too: it helps to explain why we can sometimes remember the general vibe of a word, or details like “oh, it starts with an e, I’m sure of it,” despite the word itself being out of reach. According to this theory, that would be the result of phonological encoding being only partially completed.

There’s just one problem. According to newer research, even that – the feeling of almost having a word, but not quite all of it – may be an illusion.

“Our study demonstrated a number of patterns that collectively call into question prevailing wisdom about the relationship between the [tip-of-the-tongue] state and partial recollective access to attributes of the sought-after word,” wrote Anne Cleary, Professor in Cognitive Psychology at Colorado State University, in a 2023 article for Psychology Today .

For example, she explained, not only are people more likely to draw a complete blank than to recall partial attributes of a word, but even when those partial attributes are found, “they were wrong more often than they were right.”

“During [tip-of-the-tongue] states, people tended to feel like they knew a characteristic like the first letter even when they did not,” Cleary said. “In other words, people felt like they knew the first letter of the sought-after word […] even though they could not correctly identify it. This hints at the possibility that much of our subjective experience of having access to partial attributes of the word on the tip of our tongue may be illusory.”

In total, then: why does this happen? We’re not really sure. The answer is, ironically, just out of reach right now.

Dealing with lethologica

While we don’t know the exact mechanism behind lethologica, there are some definite patterns to which words are more likely to be affected – and, in turn, some concrete techniques that can help you around the forgetful phenomenon.

There are two types of words that end up on the tip of our tongues most often, Abrams explained in 2017 : vocabulary that we use only infrequently, and proper names. In both cases, it’s thought to be a result of the connection between their lemmas and phonology getting weaker through under-use: “We don’t often call people we know by their names when we are talking to them,” Abrams pointed out, “but it strengthens the connections to their sounds when we do.”

That’s why, so long as you’re not frequently forgetting the words for everyday objects, you shouldn’t worry too much about experiencing the odd tip-of-the-tongue state. Yes, they will increase in frequency as you get older, but no, it’s likely not a sign on its own of something dire like Alzheimer's disease or dementia.

“If you forget what [a pen] is called, that’s a problem,” Abrams explained. “But if you can’t come up with words like ‘abacus’ or ‘marsupial’ that’s completely normal.”

That said, it can be pretty awkward to draw a blank on the name of a coworker you’ve sat next to for 10 years – so Abrams has a few tactics to help you out of an embarrassing spot.

“One thing is that typically people say they try to strategically find the word by starting with the letter it begins with,” she said in a 2013 video for the American Psychological Association. “[But] I would argue that it’s the initial syllable that seems to be really key.”

Therefore, she explained, if you think you know the first letter, then try adding on the next phoneme – “is it la , is it le , is it li , is it ly ,” Abrams suggested – and that may make your mental search more fruitful.

“The other suggestion that I would have, particularly for older adults, is […] that when you have an alternate name in mind it can actually be counterproductive,” she continued. “So tell your spouse to not be so helpful when they suggest a name!”

Instead, “maybe step away from it,” she said, and simply give your brain time to figure out the right phonology on its own.