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Smart. Smaaaaarrrrt. Smmmmmmmart. i.e. Semantic Satiation

 
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This may be off topic, but it's Paul's fault.   The link to this thread was in an email asking if sometimes ordinary words occasionally sound weird and foreign.  Since there's not a thread for that, but many others are no doubt linking from the same email, and hoping everyone forgives the hijack:

Yes, Paul, ordinary common words sometimes sound weirdish to me too.  Words I use all the time.  Sometimes I just let the sounds play in my mind and wonder, "How did those particular sounds come to mean that particular thing?  And I get the opposite, too, though no better founded in reason--sometimes sounds seem like they ought to mean the thing they do as an inherent quality of the sound.

I can't explain it.  

It might be because I am super-SMART : )  and in love with language, always looking for a clever lyric and trying to write triple entendres into songs, etc.

 
steward
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Do you ever suddenly realize a word you use every single day just suddenly sounds really weird and foreign?  That just happened to me with the word "smart."  If I didn't know what it was, I might think it was a made-up word for when smurfs eat sunchokes.

I wondered if there was a name the experience of words suddenly sounding strange.  Turns our there is - "semantic satiation."

What is semantic satiation?

Semantic satiation is the name of a psychological phenomenon wherein the repetition of a word, whether it’s visual or oral, causes it to lose its meaning for the viewer/listener, and makes it seem like it’s just a meaningless sound. Historically, the term ‘semantic satiation’ has been used to refer to the subjective loss of meaning that comes as a result of prolonged exposure to a word.

    -source

What words have you bumped up against that suddenly sound strange and unfamiliar?
 
steward
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I love it!  As a person living in Maine I just wanted to share our perspective that maybe it sounds weird because it's actually pronounced "smaht"....and preferably "wicked smaht".  An extra "a" is commendable too.

 
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