not being able to remember words

[Mince]

I read on the internet somewhere that someone once asked the taxi driver to take him to the airport, but he could not remember the word 'airport', so he eventually came up with "plane station". Perhaps the conversation went as thus:

TAXI DRIVER: Where to, sir?

MAN: The . . . erm [mumbling] the flighty place.

TAXI DRIVER: I'm sorry, sir?

MAN:  I'm, erm . . . taking an air car

TAXI DRIVER: I really don't follow . . .

MAN: [exasperated] The plane station, goddammit!


So has any had to refer to the night as 'dark time' or the oven as the 'hot box' or water as 'drinking fluid'?

[Roger Kettle]

A friend of mine was once trying to talk about something he'd seen on television the previous night. The problem was that the word "television" had deserted his brain. After several agonising seconds, he desperately mimed a box in the air and shouted "picture wireless!"
This is absolutely true and it would be hugely unfair to reveal his identity. (Doug Sherriff).

[Sandy Buttcheeks]

I have a similar story from an old work colleague who worked in the gold mines of South Africa for a while. They have basically their own language called Fanagalo, a pidgin English type thing, I believe.

He was using all his recently learned linguistic skills to try and describe a medical establishment, and spent several minutes talking about big houses full of sickness, people who saw death, brave people with masked faces and knives, before someone said...

"Ah, boss Jim...the hospital!"

It's one of those stories that's better told, but it still amuses me to this day!

[Roger Kettle]

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