From Elliott Simpson
Feedback talks of hearing a name a second time shortly after hearing it in a different context (16 April). In our family this is referred to as the Elgin effect.
There are millions of things happening around us all the time. We only notice that many of these are repeating after someone has drawn our attention to a particular instance. I came up with the name while discussing intuition with a colleague: I took “Elgin” as an example and assured her that, although she believed she hadn’t heard of the place in two years, she would hear it again within 48 hours.
Later that day she contacted me to report that she had overheard a colleague talking about his holiday in Morayshire. Sure enough, in the next sentence he described a “small place just outside Elgin”.
Airdrie, Lanarkshire, UK
