Tip of the tongue....

Tip of the tongue (or TOT) is the phenomenon of failing to retrieve a word from memory, combined with partial recall and the feeling that retrieval is imminent. The phenomenon's name comes from the saying, "It's on the tip of my tongue." The tip of the tongue phenomenon reveals that lexical access occurs in stages. (Online)

I read that the equivalent of this kind of brink-memory (my term) is recognized in every language but Icelandic. I wonder why.

I have written about TOT in my yet-unpublished memoir on ageing. Perhaps I am a victim of agism - though heaven knows there are a lot of ageing memoirs out there - the young whipper-snappers who have scanned (not read, I am sure) my book, Endings, have turned it down. I have been type-cast over the years by the people who know me only as a non-fiction writer and not as a playwright. (Theatre is my first love; non-fiction was for bread and butter when I was trying to support me and my kids with my writing.) They think I am a self-help writer. Oh, well.

Back to TOT and my reference to it Endings. I have been writing a blog for a few years now and I have consciously tried not to say anything I have written in that elusive book. Perhaps I will begin soon - a chapter or a thought at a time? It's one way to get "published" - and lose a copyright?

I finished writing it a couple of years ago now. It's not dated, exactly, but I am. I keep growing older and older. Remember that answer to the question, "how old are you?" - "I'm as old as my tongue and a little younger than my teeth." Anything on the tip of my tongue is pretty old.