We’ve all had our minds go blank in the middle of a conversation. Suddenly, it’s impossible to pull up the word for a thing, place, or person. We gesture with our hands and feel like we’re on the verge of remembering—but the word just won’t appear.
It’s a predicament language researchers dub the “tip of the tongue” state.
These and other speech errors are tough for researchers to document and analyze because they can’t be replicated easily in a lab setting.
