When words fail you
When you find yourself unable to recall a particular word, there are quite a few alternative filler words you can call on. In English these include thing, thingumy, thingumybob, thingamyjig, wotsit, doobree, doodad, and whatchamacallit. Few of these words have a standard form, so you can spell them how you like.
Knowing the equivalents of these words in other languages is very useful because there will always be gaps in your vocabulary. What kinds of filler words do you use in your language?
26 Responses to “When words fail you”
Nishiki on 24 Oct 2006 at 6:56 pm #
A common “alternative filler word” in Malay is “apa nama”, literally “what name”.
Laci the Hun on 24 Oct 2006 at 7:16 pm #
in Hungarian it’s “izé” but in my dialect (I learnt from my granny) we use “hotyiják” it equals with watchamacallit
in Esperanto you can say “umo” you can use it as a verb “mi umas” meaning I’m doing a thing… or something like that :)
how do they say it in Arabic?
Lau on 24 Oct 2006 at 7:40 pm #
I’ve always liked the German word Dingsbums. The sound of it is just great. In English I usually prefer the word thingy. But stuff is also a very useful word.
In Danish we would probably say: ting, dims, dippedut, himstregims or something similar. Even the last two actually appear in the official list of how to spell words. (Don’t know the English term for such a book ;) )
Polly on 24 Oct 2006 at 7:56 pm #
“Thingamajig”, “doohickey”, “whattchamacallit”(also a chocolate bar), and just plain “thing.”
In Armenian, it’s pretty straightforward: “thing” translated as “pahn”/ “բան”
I hear Russians using “eta” / “это” when they seemingly can’t remember a word. I know I do. ;)
AR on 24 Oct 2006 at 8:03 pm #
We say “stuff” and “like” a lot. I’ve seen spanish speakers say “bueno”, or “yyyyyyy”. Bengali people often say “maane” meaning “means”.
Ronald Kyrmse on 24 Oct 2006 at 8:09 pm #
In Portuguese we say “ãããhhh…” when at a loss for words (that’s a nasal _a:_, a sound that has to be heard to be believed!). On a more verbal level, we say “coisa” (”thing”). I believe Argentinians say “este…” when searching for an appropriate word; it means “this…”.
Declan on 24 Oct 2006 at 8:27 pm #
É sin, or Ceard é sin, in Irish.
Zachary R. on 24 Oct 2006 at 8:36 pm #
In French I mostly hear “chose” (thing), which is often preceded or followed by other words. E.g. “chose là…” (thing there…) “euh… c’te chose, tu sais?” (umm… that thing, you know?) I can’t think of any other words used, as most people tend to fill the empty space with either a description or the English equivalent.
Giovanni on 24 Oct 2006 at 8:45 pm #
In Italian, whatchamacallit would be
- “cosa” (thing)
- “come si chiama/dice?” (what’s his/its name?)
- the non-existent word “coso” (thing-o) in spoken Italian, not only used for things but for people too
- a plethora of regional words, for example “fresco” in Rome, which has an ironic feel and refers to an old and/or strange and/or funny tool, like something you buy in a flea market.
jdotjdot89 on 25 Oct 2006 at 1:10 am #
Spanish:
“cosa”, meaning “thing”, is always a popular one. Beyond that, I don’t know many others, though I am sure there are some.
In Hebrew, there are a few. When English-speakers say “uhhh…”, Hebrew-speakers and the like say “ehh…..” which is really very amusing. “כאילו/ke’ilu” meaning roughly “as if, like if” is very popular and goes where English-speakers would throw in “like”.
Ben L. on 25 Oct 2006 at 1:55 am #
“Bums” happens to be part of a German expletive, snicker snicker.
Podolsky on 25 Oct 2006 at 5:39 am #
When a Hebrew speaker finds difficulty to find a suitable word he uses the espression “ze, ma shmo” = this, what’s its name.
jane on 25 Oct 2006 at 11:52 am #
Many Australian languages have such a word, which usually can be inflected for case, and can form part of derived verbs “do whatsname”
Josh on 25 Oct 2006 at 1:48 pm #
When speaking french I tend to use “truc” and “machin” a lot. Although “chose” means “thing”, these other words have more of a “whatchamacallit” nature to me. Like, when I don’t know the word for something (i.e. a hole puncher) I’ll call it a “perce-truc” (hole punchin’-thing) or “machin à percer” (thing that punches holes).
Josh on 25 Oct 2006 at 1:50 pm #
Or “machin qui perce”…etc.
Joakim on 25 Oct 2006 at 5:08 pm #
In norway we use words like dings, dingsboms (equal to the german “dingsbums”), duppeditt, greie.. But i guess “ting” (thing) is the most common one.
Josh on 25 Oct 2006 at 5:24 pm #
“Duppeditt”– haha, my favourite thus far. Norwegian just looks “cute” to me for some reason.
Someguy on 25 Oct 2006 at 6:15 pm #
“juttu”, “semmoinen”, “asia” and “hauskuus” spring to mind from my use of Finnish.
Samawel on 25 Oct 2006 at 7:02 pm #
In colloquial Arabic, we’d say something like “شو اسمه” or “ما اسمه” literally “what’s his’s name”.
Minstrel Ayreon on 25 Oct 2006 at 7:24 pm #
One that I’ve seen in Spanish for a person whose name you don’t know is “Fulano,” which kind of functions like saying, “So-and-So”.
Benjamin on 25 Oct 2006 at 7:35 pm #
In German there is of course Dingsbums, as mentioned above, but there’re also the words Dings or Dingsda. Hm, are there words without “dings”… Yes. Teil or Zeug(s) (piece and ?stuff?). Any others? I think so, but I don’t remember any at the moment.
Ronald Kyrmse on 27 Oct 2006 at 12:59 pm #
[ An aside to Minstrel Ayreon ]
Yes, we have “fulano” in Portuguese too. In fact, the three generic persons - the English language’s Tom, Dick and Harry, or John Doe & Co. - are called (in order) Fulano, Beltrano, Sicrano. :-)
Jared on 30 Oct 2006 at 9:07 pm #
“Thingummy” seems to be a peculiarity of the British. I’ve never run across that word in an American publication unless it’s a) a quote from a Brit, or b) an originally British book published in the US.
HeLei on 01 Nov 2006 at 3:16 am #
In Chinese, at least in our university, we often say “那个” (na ge) “然后” (ran hou) which mean “that” “then” separately. They are really meaningless, but quite popular now. I don’t know why. (I’m ashamed to say that I cannot communicate fluently without them!)
parkbench on 08 Nov 2006 at 8:49 pm #
Spanish uses “chisme” often: “algún chisme…”
Joseph Quintanilla on 18 Nov 2006 at 7:54 am #
In spanish I’ve only heard este…In japanese i’ve heard my professor use eeto…… a lot. Any other fillers in japanese?