The purpose of being unable to remember what’s on the tip of your tongue

The phenomenon I’m about to describe will be infuriatingly familiar to older readers, but will have been encountered by people of any age. Even in childhood we meet it, and as we grow old it happens more and more often. So common is the experience that it would surprise me if there was any language and culture that lacked an idiomatic expression to describe it. Spanish certainly has one: ‘En la punta de la lengua.’ So does French: ‘Sur le bout de la langue.’

The Poles, I’m told, say ‘Na koncu jezyka.’ In Wales they say ‘Blewyn tasod.’ All these idioms refer to the same thing. In English the curious phrase finds more than a million references in Google. The phrase is: ‘On the tip of my tongue.’

The Welsh say it’s a hair on their tongue; the Germans say it lies on their tongue; the Russians say it’s spinning on their tongue.