> I have resorted to filler sentences or repeating myself as my brain searches frantically for that right word.
I have gotten into the habit of first declaring what the word starts with, sounds like, and approximates. This lets the listener help me out. Then I usually use a metaphor, which is often inappropriate: "how much groping in the dark did you have when you [started using this analysis software]?" Then I get weird looks but you end up grabbing their attention, sometimes they find the word for you, and other times the vocabulary comes back to you a few sentences later.
In the above example, I didn't find the word, but thankfully the point made its way across. It was further weird because this was at an MRI scanner, so somebody was literally "groping in the dark."
I also remember embarrassingly forgetting the word for "fly" (bug), pointing around in the air, and said, "the, the, the, thing." I use pronouns lavishly too: did you cut a hole in the thing to put the thing in the thing? --> did you cut a hole in the wood block to put the slab's protrusion into the wood block?
I have gotten into the habit of first declaring what the word starts with, sounds like, and approximates. This lets the listener help me out. Then I usually use a metaphor, which is often inappropriate: "how much groping in the dark did you have when you [started using this analysis software]?" Then I get weird looks but you end up grabbing their attention, sometimes they find the word for you, and other times the vocabulary comes back to you a few sentences later.
In the above example, I didn't find the word, but thankfully the point made its way across. It was further weird because this was at an MRI scanner, so somebody was literally "groping in the dark."
I also remember embarrassingly forgetting the word for "fly" (bug), pointing around in the air, and said, "the, the, the, thing." I use pronouns lavishly too: did you cut a hole in the thing to put the thing in the thing? --> did you cut a hole in the wood block to put the slab's protrusion into the wood block?