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Hi everyone, and welcome back to “Britain Under the Microscope”. 欢迎回来《闲话英伦》.

Hello, Anlan.

Hi Lulu. Hi everyone.

So what are we going to talk about today?

Well… I thought we could talk about，er...I’ve got it here somewhere. Where's that thingamajig?

Huh?

Thingamajig, you know what I mean, the thingamabob.

Are you having a stroke?

No. I'm trying to remember…er…oh, it’s piece of paper and it’s got lots of pages in it，you know…the thingamajig.

Oh! Are you talking about your notebook?

That's it.

But what did you say? Thingamajig?

Thingamajig.

It's that even an English?

Of course it is. It's basically what we say when we can't remember the word for something, we call it the “thingamajig”.

How do you spell that “thingamajig”?

Thing—a—ma—jig.

So it doesn't actually mean anything. It just means that thing.

Pretty much，yeah.

哦，就是有点像中文里说的那个玩意儿，就什么“那啥”。

Pretty much，exactly the same. But we say thingamajig or thingamabob.

Ok, and is that what we're gonna talk about today?

Well, I was thinking about discussing something else，but now we're on the topic, we must talk about this.

Exactly. So that's not just one word I 'm guessing. There are some words like that.

There's loads in English，particularly around people who are like me, rather forgetful and absent-minded. So you can say thingamajig，thingamabob or thingy.

And these all mean the same thing?

Pretty much. They’re what we call placeholder words.

Placeholder, because they're holding a place. 就是有点充数的那种词.

It's basically just to give us a bit time to think.

Umm, and also when you're forgetting something. I think I've heard of one, it’s whatchamacallit. Is that the same idea?

Yeah, the whatchamacallit or the whatsit.

Whatchamacallit, it is actually “what you might call it”，but you sort of crammed them together.

Yes, and it comes to whatchamacallit.

whatchamacallit. Do people actually use these words?

Mostly older people，but some young people might say it as well. It's always associated with being a bit forgetful, so it's generally seen as an older person thing to say.

But I mean, it happens to me as well. It happens to，I think a lot of people. It's not about being old or young，sometimes you just... you know what you're trying to say, but that particular word just slip your mind for that brief moment. 我在中文里也经常会说就那个什么什么，你知道我说的啦. So that's the sort of idea.

Pretty, exactly the same.

So whatchamacallit. When we're talking about this，it reminds me of you know those old couple, they've been together for ages and ages, and when they talk to each other, they don't need to say，can you pass me the notebook or can you pass me the plate? They would just say，can you just pass me that thingamajig or whatchamacallit? And the other person immediately knows.

Yeah, my grandparents were exactly the same, so my grandad would often say the thingamabob or the thingamajig, and my grandmother would always know exactly what he was asking for.

That's a nice relationship, 就把那啥给我拿过来. And then you immediately knows what“那啥” is.

Yeah exactly.

Do you know actually, speaking of whatchamacallit, you know the chocolate brand “Hershey”.

Yeah，the American brand.

“好时”.Now they're known for their Hershey kisses，but they used to have a candy bar in the 70s actually called whatchamacallit. Because I was very interested in the brand, so that's how I came to know that. And then I think they relaunched it in the 2000s. They relaunched something called thingamajig.

Ok，I didn't know that.

So it's just a little bit of fun fact toys about the actual name for that particular chocolate bar is called whatchamacallit or thingamajig.

That’s a good name for chocolate bar.

But back to thingy, you mentioned thingy. I don't know if I should ask you this，but once I was watching a very old British comedy, Blackadder (黑爵士) with Rowan Atkinson（罗文·艾金森）, and then they were mentioning thingy, they were using it as some sort of an euphemism for you know, specific part of human body.

Yeah, I know what you mean, yeah.

But, do people actually use it like that?

You can do, basically it's sort of like the comic effect really, and it's because also thingy sounds quite funny.

A lot of it is just because of the pronunciation itself, isn't it? 所以thingy也可以有“不可描述”的意思。If you want to know, check out Blackadder and do your own research.

But apart from all of these where people generally use, when they're trying to remember something. In English，there are also other things，right? Like when you're listing things，you just don't want to give the specifics.

Yeah, kind of…we might say whatnot.

So like today I bought lots of fruits，apples, bananas and whatnot就是什么之类的那种感觉.

Yeah，pretty much.

And I've also heard people say so and so or such and such.

Yeah, so and so, you normally use it to talk about people as well. And in British English you can say someone is a so and so.

What does that mean?

It's normally negative. It's another way of…it's like another euphemism really. He's such a so and so, that's normally…

就是这个人有点那啥，对吧? It's one of those things that yeah，you know, people will get it immediately if you know this person.

For example, you know who.

You know who, umm. So if you're talking about a specific person，but we're gonna come to that about people. So those are about things. Now let's talk about people. If you cannot remember the name for someone，then you cannot say whatchamacallit, thingamajig, because these are about things. What would you use?

Whatshisname?

Like what's his name? What if it is a girl?

Whatshername?

How would you actually use that in like conversation?

Oh, you never guess I saw whatshisname in the pub yesterday.

就有点像就那谁，我昨天看到那谁了.

Yep, that's pretty decent translation. I was walking on the street and I saw whatshisname or I saw whatshername. Sometimes you can also say whatshisface.

What’s his face?

Or whatsherface.

Does it happen to you a lot? Like you're trying to tell your friends that you met this person，but you just suddenly forget this person's name?

Constantly. I'm absolutely terrible with names.

Me too. So I constantly have to say: you know, it's just whatshisname，whatshername, you know that really tall guy, that you just met last time, whatshisname?

Whatshisface? Yeah oh I remember…

If we're talking about someone，we'll just constantly say to each other，whatshisface, whatsherface, neither of us can remember the name.

No，I have to really make conscious effort now to remember people's names，I often forget.

You sound a bit senile now.

It has been accused, people have accused me of being senile in the past.

In such a young age，but I 'm actually good with faces, just not with actual names.

You know what, in terms of placeholder names，apart from whatshisname，whatshername. It is when you genuinely cannot remember, but you also have those things like Tom，Dick and Harry for example.

Oh yeah, it's quite old-fashioned now，but some people still use it. We might say any Tom，Dick or Harry would know what that means.

That just means just the most common people.

Just everybody，anyone would know.

就是甲乙丙丁或者中文说的张三李四这个感觉，and what about John Smith?

I think that's from Doctor Who, isn't it?

I've seen it somewhere else. John smith is supposed to be one of those really generic names，I think.

Yep. John is a very common name in the UK, and also Smith is one of the most common surnames. So sometimes they might use the surname Smith or sometimes Johns as well. It just means someone is got a very very common surname.

Or maybe you're a spy and you're just working under an alias. It just sounds fake.

Yeah, it sounds too obvious.

When you introduce yourself like my name is John smith，people will be like: really?

There's actually a brewery in the UK and they have a beer called John Smith.

Ah… kind of make fun of that.

And you know I watch a lot of crime show. I think this is more of an American thing. For example，they found a dead body or found someone who's in a coma, who's been attacked. They cannot really identify this person. They would call this person Jane Doe or John Doe.（无名氏。女的无名氏叫Jane Doe，男的无名氏叫John Doe）

Have you ever heard of those?

Yeah，mostly in those American TV dramas or like crime dramas. I don’t think we say it in the UK.

Honestly, in China, because recently there was a very popular law professor and then when he was doing his lectures，he always uses examples of a criminal and he always calls him “张三”. It's kind of the same，you just say John Smith. All right. So we talked about if you forget things，if you forget people. I've also heard of things like doobry or doodad，like in British TV usually.

Doobry, doodad, gizmo as well. Normally things like gadgets I would say.

Gadgets like electronics.

Yeah, so for example，for gizmo，we might say: what’s the latest gizmo?

What's the latest gadget?

But also like doohickey，doobry，doodad is normally things like the remote control to the TV, stuff like that.

So you can be going around and just say: where is the doobry or where is the doohickey if you are 90 years old.

Yeah, if you are 90 years old.

I remember in that British comedy, Miranda was complaining about her mom saying that I hate when old people always calling things doobries.

Yeah, I dare to say this when I become that age of my, I also start saying that myself.

Doobry, but more on old people talk maybe in another episode. So I think we're gonna wrap up here.

Today we shared pretty much a lot of nonsensical words with all of you, and then on top of my head，I can't think of that many in Chinese. So if you can remember more in Chinese similar sort of placeholder words，let us know in the comment section.

Yep, and also if you're the same as whatshername and myself, then let us know in the comment section.

You forgot my name! It’s Lulu by the way.

So if you are like lulu and myself, and often forget people's names or you often forget the names of things，what do you do?

Exactly, leave as a comment in the comment section. We'll see you next time.

Bye!

Bye!