I have often experienced the not being able to pinpoint the precise word I need, but it seems to be happening with increasing frequency, and for words I ought to know. On Friday, I couldn't remember souk, Saturday it was 'miracle cure' - the context of the Pope going to Lourdes ought to be synonymous with 'miracle cure'. I struggled momentarily there with synonymous, but at least it came to me as soon as I started typing symbisomething. In my last post, I had to use thesaurus to find 'vandalism'.
I've always a slight habit of substituting homonyms - this morning I nearly posted something on 'paeons to populism' and I have just realised I meant pandering. At least I think I do; M$ Thesaurus suggests pimp or procurer as an alternative; the sexual negotiator is supported by my Collins dictionary and substantiated etymologically by Ask Oxford.
So, in fact we use the word 'pander' inappropriately.
And now I can't find paeon in the dictionary, even though I did earlier, so I've obviously spelt it wrong. It won't be peon - now that's an interesting entymology...
I hope it's just a temporary lapsus mensis.
