There is a word in the english language that descibes the phoenomenon(sp?) of a word losing its meaning when it is said repeatedly. I've heard this term before, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.
Any ideas?
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There is a word in the english language that descibes the phoenomenon(sp?) of a word losing its meaning when it is said repeatedly. I've heard this term before, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.
Any ideas?
Diluted?
adulterated?
Cliche or hackneyed?
over used?
Fuck?
Yeah, it might be fuck! The only group it bothers now is old people and religious people!
~Mr. K~
I had linguistic nuts once. The doctor game me a shot and they cleared right up.
ahem.. semi lingusit in the house..
hmm their aren't that many instenceses in the english langauge of the process which you speak of. Their is process in many languages.. one being some of the pacfic island languages. Its called the Reduplication, this where a Morpheme(the smallest meaningfull unit in the language) or a syllable is repeated. thus changing the meaning of the Morpheme. Is that what your thinking about..
You need to stop shooting up the Morpheme, Marrhcan.
Seriously...
I mean it.
Just got back home after a 12 hour shift (fuck I hate the holidays).
While many of the words suggested could indeed be what I'm trying to describe they don't quite ring a bell.
maruchan: Reduplication doesn't sound like what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is where you literally repeat any one word in your native tongue over and over until it completely loses its meaning to your mind and sounds like nothing more than some foreign sound you are making.
There actually is a term to describe the feeling you experience when this happens, but I don't know if I'll ever remember what it was. I'm pretty sure there is a "Z" in the word, but ah well. Thanks for the attempt guys.
Hmm... I know what you're trying to say with your definition. Maybe monotony is the word?
Master of 7s, I don't know if this is the term you were looking for, but the formal scientific term for repeating a word until it loses meaning is "semantic satiation." Its opposite is "semantic generation."
I have no idea of a single-word term for it, unless you're talking about something similar to "desensitization" or "generalization" (going by your "z" theory).
Desensitization?
Desensitization sounds like the word I'm searching for, in fact I'm almost positive that is the one, but sematic satiation makes more sense.
Thanks Cynical.
:lol: that actually made me laugh out loud.Quote:
Originally posted by NGEFreek
Fuck?
GAYXORZ!Quote:
Originally posted by Master of 7s I'm pretty sure there is a "Z" in the word...