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Word of the Day: Whatchamacallit
Congratulations, champ; today is your lucky day!
I’m going to teach you what a whatchamacallit is.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret that other English teachers don’t teach you.
They like to keep it to themselves.
They say that magicians never tell their secrets, and it’s the same with English teachers.
Remember those endless lists of vocabulary words you can’t memorize?
Well, the next time you draw a blank and can’t remember what something is called, call it a whatchamacallit or a doodad, doohickey, thingamabob or thingamajig.
When you’re at a loss for a word, use whatchamacallit.
You’ll sound like a native speaker with a bad memory, not an English learner who doesn’t know the word.
You see, a whatchamacallit is whatever you can’t remember or don’t know the name of.
It’s brilliant!
Instead of pausing a conversation when the noun you want is not available, insert whatchamacallit, doohickey or thingamajig.
The sentence will flow right along as if nothing happened.
Here’s an example:
Wife: Honey, are you going to Canadian Tire this afternoon?
Husband: Yes, I am.
Wife: Can you pick up one of those whatchamacallits we were talking about last night?
Husband: Ah! Do you mean the doohickey with that thingamabob at the end of it?
Wife: That’s it.
Husband: OK. How many do you want?
Wife: Just one.
Husband: OK. I’ll pick one up if I can remember.
And there you have it.
It’s a natural conversation between a husband and wife who have no idea what they are talking about but understand each other perfectly.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 73.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.