We're all familiar with this strange feeling of casually gliding through a conversation when, suddenly, our minds go blank. "Oh, what’s the name of that thing," we might say. "I'm sure it starts with an A or something..." We're talking about this tormenting sense of being on the verge of remembering a word or a name but failing to retrieve it, no matter how hard we try.
As our minds desperately wander for the right way to express ourselves and fill the temporary void, there's only one thing left to do — come up with a new one. Ideally, you would immediately think of the perfect word that captures the essence of what you were about to say. But that’s rarely the case. So Redditor the_slippery_shoe decided to learn more about these hilarious blunders and reached out to Ask Reddit with a question: "What's the funniest name you've heard someone call an object when they couldn't remember its actual name?"
From "Carpet Banjo" to "moo beasts" and "disco chickens", the things people came up with might be officially absorbed into our vocabularies. We at Bored Panda gathered some of the funniest responses from the thread, so make sure to read them right below. Upvote the ones that made you chuckle and share your own mishaps with us in the comments!

#21

Growing up, we had a piece of furniture that we didn't know what to call. Was it a bureau? A dresser?
We agreed to call it "Uncle Fred." We forget that's weird until we have company.
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240points
#22
When my sister was young, she didn't know the word "cemetary" so she just called it a "dead-people field".
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240points
#23
At one point I started googling "map of the year" because my brain short-circuited and I couldn't recall the word "calendar".
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222points
#24

Sausage tweezers
My husband wanted me to pass him the cooking tongs.
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210points
#25

At a house party when this trashed bro comes up to me:
Hey man, I'm about to score. You got one of those . . . uh . . . plastic penis . . . socks?
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209points
#26
I couldn't remember "oven mitt" so I called it "heat gauntlet." I really like the word gauntlet.
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186points
#27

My buddy couldn't find the world for lungs, came up with breath sacks.
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186points
#28

Yesterday, I forgot what the shade is, and it was really hot outside so I told my friend "lets chill at the dark place"
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183points
#29
Compressed Horse for pony. He was a foreign exchange student from Germany.
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182points
#30

I once referred to a flyswatter as a "bug spatula" when the name escaped me .
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181points
#31

Breakfast soup. (The word he was looking for was cereal.)
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176points
#32
This came to my mind when I read a post on Reddit where a girl called a feather a "bird leaf".
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167points
#33
I couldn’t think of the word “robe” so I asked a friend if they’d seen my “towel jacket.”
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161points
#34

I can't remember the word "lid" half the time. So during work I sometimes run to the back in search of "drink hats". I get weird looks a lot...
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153points
#35
I once called toothpase "tooth soap" because it was 8 am and I was not ready for life.
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152points
#36
My girlfriend was frustrated because she couldn't find her shoehorn, and then said loudly "WHERE IS THE BOOT SPOON".
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146points
#37
I was playing pictionary with some friends, and the prompt was skunk, so I did my best to draw a skunk. My friend yelled "STINKY CAT"
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144points
#38

I met this french girl on a recent trip, and she called it a "muscle hangover", when looking for the word sore.
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136points
#40

My mum always says wanky candles instead of Yankee candles. She's always horrified when she does it.
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108points
When grappling with moments of forgotten words, some strategies and insights can help ease the frustration.
For a deeper understanding of the underlying mental blocks during such "tip-of-the-tongue" experiences, you might find it useful to explore some psychological explanations and examples in how the mind occasionally blanks on basic vocabulary.



