Learn English – Term for using “thingy-esque” phrases rather than a common word

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{This question came to mind because of the recent question .. What do you call the interconnecting bits of a puzzle piece in English? }

In my opinion, in English, it's reasonably common that—strangely enough—there is no word for a certain reasonably common thing. And indeed, speakers prefer to use an ad-hoc description for the thing in question on an ongoing basis, rather than, as you'd probably expect, a specific or technical word falling into general use and coming to be "the word" for the thing. {Contrast milieu such as say Germany or Japan, where the culture, within 12 seconds, codifies exact, specific, universally-accepted terms for anything that comes along, whether a cultural phenomenon, technical object, or the like.}

I think of this as "the Thingy substitution", or the things in question as 'thingy things' because, well, they are usually referred to as

the thingy that…

The perfect example is

the thingies on jigsaw puzzle pieces.

(Note that, 100% of English-native speakers will understand exactly what I am referring to.)

To repeat, native English speakers—in my opinion—prefer to stick (even over decades) with ad-hoc thingy-esque multi-word descriptions rather than adopting a new word generally accepted.

{On the other hand, of course, the etats-unis in particular is notorious for generating zillions of acronyms and other coinages—however, I don't think the two concepts are at odds, both are true.}

Now there's possibly a term for this phenomenon among linguists e.g., "grasp words", "thingy words" or "ad-hoc non-naming conventions" etc.

  • (a) Does anyone know such a term?

  • (b) Indeed, does anyone agree that this is a phenomenon amongst particularly English speakers?

  • (c) Indeed, is this all well-known and explored by academic linguists/etc and I'm just behind the times?

Best Answer

I absolutely loved this question. Of course, we can all think of a handful of words like thingy, that simply act as a stand-in word for the word we are thinking of but cannot, at present, grasp.

The 1960 Dictionary of American slang uses the term kadigin for placeholder words, defining it as a synonym for thingamajig.

Dr. Richard Nordquist, Professor Emeritus of English, writes in Crossing Boundaries: Studies in English Language, Literature, and Culture in a Global Environment, originally published in 2009:

The linguistic term for such peculiar sounding words as "thingamajig" and "whatchamacallit" is placeholder, or, less formally, tongue-tipper or kadigin: a word used to signal that a speaker does not know or cannot remember a more precise word for something.

William Safire, author, presidential speechwriter, and writer of The New York Time's column "On Language" addresses popular etymology in his incredibly popular, and entertaining, column. The focus of his January 9, 2005 piece, "Whosit's Whatchamacallit" is all about your topic:

"We are now into the creative world of "tongue-tippers," terms used in place of words on the tip of the speaker's tongue but just beyond linguistic reach."

In the article, Safire provides fascinating history and etymology of various tongue-tippers. We also learn that English may not be able to lay claim to all tounge-tippers:

"British English also has its words for the unremembered objects. In 1962, The Sunday Times explained that "'ujah' . . . was used as widely and as indiscriminately as 'gimmick' and 'gadget' are used now." It was usually spelled oojah and was thought to be of Hindustani origin."

I hope you enjoy reading the entirety of Safire's column. Between placeholder, kadigin and tongue-tipper, the last one in my opinion is the best. I think that it's important to have a memorable word when trying to remember the name for the group of words that we use when we just can't seem to remember the actual word.

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