Apparent loss of vocabulary

45% Normal
12 Comments

For the last two years or so, I've found that I would run into situations on a daily (maybe even hourly) basis where I would be talking or writing, and I would suddenly come to seemingly random words that I could not recall. This makes speaking in complete sentences extremely hard, and makes writing a slow and painful task. These words are often common words or even expressions which I have used regularly in the past, and are apparently becoming lost to me. I find that I must visit the thesaurus more and more now.

Is this normal, or is this something that I should be concerned about?

Voting Results
45% Normal
Based on 221 votes (99 yes)
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Comments ( 12 )
  • Kitsunechan
    14 years ago

    ...whats that disease old ppl get that makes them forget everything?

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    • WishIWasHere
      9 years ago

      I can't remember

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  • GripenDvaShest
    14 years ago

    Hm... well I'm currently 18... so I guess it's not normal. It could be fatigue, but I've never seen a similar effect in other people who are my age.

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  • shakenbake855
    14 years ago

    it could be serious and have something do with your brain/thought processes..or it could be you think too much about what you say before you say it outloud..also i know if you continue reading books of any kind it keeps your vocabulary level up so you can pull words out easily when you conversate.

    look into it

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  • Quantumpanda
    13 years ago

    This is far more normal than most people want to admit, though it sounds like it's happening to you more often than is typical. I usually have this sort of thing happen to me every day or two. If it's happening as frequently as you suggest, you might consider seeing a speech pathologist about aphasia.

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  • Healey
    14 years ago

    I would definitely see a doctor, just in case. Not to scare you, but my dad has terminal brain cancer and the first signs we noticed were that he was forgetting words. In his case he was also having a very hard time reading and spelling, but if talking in complete sentences is hard for you, I think you should really get checked out and make sure this isn't something serious.

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  • Malfoy
    14 years ago

    Drugs and age cause that. If you're under 50 or 60, I'd say that it's probably not normal.

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    • Koda
      9 years ago

      Actually, people in their sixties have the largest working vocabularies, it only declines on average in the eighth decade of life.

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  • [Old Memory]
    14 years ago

    Fatigue?

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  • PiAnt
    14 years ago

    It seems as though your word power is important to you;, but it's probably not happening as often as you fear.

    I, also, write for a living and yes, it happens to me too. I suddenly find myself struggling to recall a word I've probably used a thousand times before.

    I've found that, in my case, it's an overload thing. I've been writing a lot and there are many things in my head at the time, meaning I can't focus.

    When things get to that stage, I have to walk away, even for a short time; have a coffee or a ciggy and then come back to it.

    Try it next time. Hopefully the fog will have lifted from your mind and you can now focus clearly again.

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  • DrAkula
    14 years ago

    Yeah its happened to me before, the way I got over it was finding an interesting series of Books for me, it was Roman Fiction.

    I read about 12 novels of Roman fiction, they were amazing and it trained my vocabulary relatively well.

    I also got an office job to get accustomed to the formal proceedure of letter writing, this was in a Law firm (so don't judge yet;)). And I feel this helped me immensely.

    But all I'm saying is, do some reading.

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  • Sheep
    14 years ago

    you should apply for extra time in exams and stuff this could be holding you back

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