Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

What do you call it when you're about to jump into a conversation but someone beats you to it? Mary, a caller and self-described introvert from Indianapolis, calls it getting seagulled, inspired by an episode of The Simpsons in which nerdy Lisa works up the courage to participate in a conversation, but is interrupted at the last second by a screeching seagull.

In her new book, The Introvert's Way, author Sophia Dembling refers to this experience as getting steamrolled. A different kind of interruption is getting porlocked, a reference to the visitor from Porlock who interrupted Samuel Taylor Coleridge's reverie while he was writing the poem Kubla Khan and made him forget the rest of what he wanted to write. Have a better term for these unfortunate experiences? This is part of a complete episode.

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