Why Do Words Sound Weird Sometimes?

Ever say a word one too many times and your brain starts to lose it's grip on what it means and you start to doubt if it is even a word at all? What's up with that?

Hosted by Dr. Erica Brozovsky, Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and finds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fields of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.

Otherwords is a production of Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.

[AnarchicOrder]

I always called this "jamais vu"
Which is the opposite of deja vu. Jamais vu is when something familiar to you suddenly feels unfamiliar

[omiai]

I remember in a computing class in high school (2004 probably) we were doing basic programming. At the start of every line you had to type PRINT. No problem. But then after about 20 mins of this you could sense a general confusion in the class, people started looking around at each others screens, then multiple people all around the same time asked the person beside them 'how do you spell print?' because we'd all typed it so many times it no longer seemed correct.

[onerayoflight]

I knew this was "a thing", and have always called it "word fatigue", but I never knew it had it had an official name. Good to know !

[Midori_Seabreeze]

As an English teacher in a foreign country… this happens way too often. Not only am I competing with this phenomenon, I’ve got hundreds of students learning the word in their accent, decades of bad teaching ingrained into the head-teacher who then teaches it wrong, and a culture that graduates students whether they study or not.

Here I thought it was just me and some form of neurodivergent handicap that I had to mask.

[AndrewMcColl]

"Explosion, not so much." Unless you're Michael Bay.

[jenniferm.engles]

"Jamais vu" is what we termed this in my cognitive psychology class. Super weird and interesting phenomenon.

[SulGhst]

Semantic Satiation sounds both like the name of a band and like a special move in a fighting game.

[tsopmocful]

I remember as a kid tossing the word 'about' in my head until it became strangely alien.

[HeiBao]

I remember first experiencing this as a child and being amazed by it. Neat to learn something new about something old.

[rajrigby]

" Cellar Door " becomes more beautiful with semantic satiation

[SwampNymph]

This is why making a misbehaving schoolchild write ✍️ “I will not *insert offense here*” some hundred-odd times like they do in shows is logically ineffective because the whole phrase will become meaningless after a while and only chance can state if the lesson is learned.

[tiffanymarie]

It's very frustrating when writing something for work

[Ironattheend]

This is so fascinating! Also, that shirt is absolutely gorgeous

[cannibalbananas]

I still remember being in 7th or 8th grade, sitting in English class wondering how to spell "any". It was right the 1st few times in my paper, but by the end I was convinced it was "eni". That's how it's spelt if you sound it out imo.

[abdulsoleh]

I remember i confused seeing the word 'three', I'm glad it was normal.😅

[Big_Man_Enjoyer]

Me when I scroll through my list of fonts and the word “sample” no longer looks real

[JacquesDeLeon]

"Tartlets... tartlets... tartlets... the word has lost all meaning."

[frosty_brandon]

Honestly, this has never happened to me. I've heard of it before, but never experience it.

[LittleLulubee]

YES, this happens to me!! I have literally had to look up some of the most common words before hitting send- just to make sure they were real words!! 😭😭 OMG 😅😅

[mrsbluesky]

I remember completely forgetting what the word “of” means and how it’s spelled.