My Tangent – Finding The Correct Word

Early Evening,

And now I know… Well I think I know, but I just can’t think of the correct word. And it’s happens at the time when I’m trying to sit and figure out what I need to write next of the subject of my choice, genealogy. It happens when I’m trying to come up with a good word, noun, adjective, or verb, but one just doesn’t roll of the tongue of my brain. It appears that I’m not as quick on the draw, so-to-write, as I thought I was some many years ago.

I’ve blamed it on a number of things. The car accident and the brain concussion 10 years ago? Possibly? The damage and neurological impairment of my short-term memory. The slowing of my fingers on the keyboard, from ultra-fast to just very fast, while I hit more and more incorrect keys. The culpability? I just say it’s the batteries of my electronic keyboard. And then I have, which I’ve used for years, Dragon Naturally Speaking, that allows me to dictate directly to software on my PC, but I really don’t like the head-set. I’ve never ever liked wearing anything on my head. Another excuse…

Today I read a reasonable summary article in The New York Time, inserted in the section The 9th Annual Year In Ideas. The article, Literary Alzheimer’s, by Amanda Fortini, makes me start thinking. I think, I’m thinking, if that’s the correct word. But it makes one hell of a lot of sense. The discussion is that there may be a related inter-play between the loss of vocabulary and the progression of Alzheimer’s-related-dementia.

Now please do not think that I am self-diagnosing myself with Alzheimer’s. Family and friends over the years have at times inferred that I may be somewhat demented. I just find Fortini’s article extremely interesting. I also find that the research conducted by Ian Lancashire and Graeme Hirst at the University of Toronto may be very revealing. But if it is not necessarily Alzheimer’s, I would throw out into the argument, the thought that there may be something to do with the aging of the mechanistic operations and body parts. Compounded with previous happenings and medical history, I may be able to accept the slow regression. And in conjunction with other articles proselytizing the benefits of word and mental-stimulus games, I think I will take up cross-word puzzle and cryptographic challenges.

Now I understand my thirst for the research component of genealogy and the study of ancestry. Anyone for a game of Scrabble?

Enjoy,

Jim