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Imagine you're ordering a meal. Or writing the sweetest text to your crush. Or even making the perfect presentation to your colleagues. Suddenly the words simply stop... coming. Or worse, you start spitting random jibberish that makes absolutely no sense. Brain farts are real, ladies and gentlemen. But the good news is that you aren't the only one who's dropping these stink bombs. Continue scrolling and check out some of the funniest struggles people have had with the English language, so that the next time you release a gassy wind of iuhgkfhregwlrh you can remember that it happens to the best of us.

#1

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

ryanlangdon_ Report

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Rissie
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, people with headsets tend to cause situations like that. Makes them look very silly.

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Interestingly, there's a scientific term for what we like to call a "brain fart." Whenever you're having one, you're experiencing tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) syndrome, from the phrase "it's on the tip of my tongue." And while there is no universally accepted cause, there are some scientific theories that try to explain it.

The first one to describe the TOT phenomenon was psychologist William James. "A sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction, making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term," he wrote in his 1890 book Principles of Psychology.

However, no empirical research was done until 1966 when Harvard researchers Roger Brown and David McNeil published a paper in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. They read definitions to people, and then asked them to remember the defined words. During the TOT state, these people could recall certain aspects of the word, and the closer they came to remembering it, the more accurate their associations became.

"The signs of it were unmistakable; he [the subject] would appear to be in mild torment, something like the brink of a sneeze, and if he found the word his relief was considerable. While searching for the target, [he] told us all the words that came to his mind. He volunteered the information that some of them resembled the target in sound but not in meaning; others he was sure were similar in meaning but not in sound."

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#4

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

unclewhiskysrevenge Report

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Laugh Fan
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's priceless! I wish mine came out as actual words when I stuff up - normally it's just gibberish.

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#9

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

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Sonja
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Understand. I wanted to order " pizza prosciutto cotto" and it came out as "pizziutto prosto" and if you try to pronounce it in my language, the first part of the new word sounds like a...really bad word for vagina...so the waitress looked at me with surprise...

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#10

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

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Kaisu
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember this as a much older Internet story, where someone was playing football and accidentally kicked the opposing goalie in the face and then said this thing. So I'm not sure if this person actually did this

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Jo Firth
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why would you use the F word when apologising for anything to anyone? That in itself is a brain fart.

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Coleen
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why on earth would you even attempt to use that language in front of “an old lady” you just tripped?

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Rhiana
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well since you yelled at her I'd throw a wild guess and say nope

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bill marsano
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why not el;iminate the word "f*cking" from your vocabulary, especially in non-essential use? It will make you stand out among the too-many other people who today use it almost once in every sentence.

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#12

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

Holly Fouch Report

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Tara
Community Member
4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I love this so much. I’m glad they had a good laugh too.

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#13

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

Erica Siegel Report

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A panda
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4 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Once a waiter asked me what i would like.....i wanted to say "just water" but i said "wust jater"😂😂😂

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#21

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

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Beeps
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is the kind of language I routinely speak at the onset of a migraine attack. Freaks the hell out of people.

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#24

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

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Foxxy
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I said "love you too" to the pizza delivery guy the other day instead of just "you too" in reply to have a good night.

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#29

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

Jeni Ensminger Report

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Laugh Fan
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I used to get a taxi home from school and the driver was playing some truly awful music (okay I know that's just an opinion) but instead of saying 'can we switch that off? I asked if we could have it off instead - a UK colloquialism for sex. I was 12.

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#30

People-Mess-Up-English-Words

Katie Wright Report

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Monika Soffronow
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4 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

At that ungodly time, any and all miscommunications between brain and tongue are understandable.

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