B

You start to introduce an old friend to someone, and suddenly you can’t remember that someone’s name even though you sense it is just there in your memory. Or you can’t quite bring back the name of a film you just saw. Such tip-of-the-tongue or TOT incidents happen to almost everyone, notes Deborah Burke, a scientist at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

These lapses(失误) have noting to do with remembering the meaning of a word, but rather with its sound. “Often, the sound of a word is arbitrary (任意的) and senseless,” says Burke. This arbitrariness sometimes can make it difficult to bring back the word.

The best way to prevent the problem is to use the name of a person or object as frequently as possible. “I tell people to do what salespeople often do-repeat people’s name several times just before you plan to see them,” says Liz Zelinski of the University of South California in Los Angeles.

A TOT experience can seem worse when a similar-sounding(发音相似的)，but incorrect, word comes into your head unexpectedly and stays there. Burke tells the story of a student who was trying to remember the name of a particular car. The student wanted the word Winnebago, but she could only come up with rutabaga. When this happens, think of something else, suggests Burke. “If you stop feeling worried about it, the correct word sooner or later will come to you.”