There's a Word for That: Semantic Satiation

[underused]

You know that thing where you say a word so many times it starts to sound wrong?

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Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

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Technically, there are two words for that.

Comments

[merikuru]

Does that also count for when you type a word so much it no longer looks like a word?

[underused]

I was wondering about this, too. I think this response has something to do with diminishing cognitive returns caused by repetition (although I'm not certain and may not be articulating the concept well), so it seems related to me.

[merikuru]

Sounds plausible enough to me!

I had this happen the other day in fact - I typed "choice" so much it stopped looking like a word. It...still doesn't, as a matter of fact.

[underused]

Choice? Hm. Are you sure that's a word?

hahaha

[merikuru]

At this point? No. :D