Spoon, known are the epitome of semantic satiation

Spoon.

That was the word. Spoon.

The longer my friend Liz studied it, the more wrong it looked. And sounded. Spoon. Is that really a word? Spoon. Spoooooooon. Spoooooooon. It can't be right, can it?

I experienced the same thing earlier that day for a different word. I was considering a quote from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said strategy included "known knowns," "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." Writing it, suddenly the word "known" seemed wrong. Known. Knoooooown. K-noun? Nnnnooonnne.

You've done this, right? If so, you're not alone. A 1907 paper published in The American Journal of Psychology named the phenomenon "semantic satiation." It is the process of repeating a word over and over to the point where it temporarily loses meaning to the person saying it, who then perceives it as meaningless.

This is a fairly common experience. This isn't using a word wrong or misspelling it (irony: I'm a writer/editor and the word I'm most afraid of misspelling is "misspelling." Too many double letters. More about that in a future column). Semantic satiation is saying spoon so many times that it seems ridiculous and not a word.

It's so common that I asked friends to share examples. Some of their offerings seem like they're not words because they're spelled or pronounced weirdly. But many are words that eventually seem like they must be wrong. And the more you study them, the more wrong they seem.

They're . . . weird. And there's irony in the fact that one such word is weird. Weird. Weird. It can't be spelled that way, right? Or pronounced like that. Weeeeeerd. We-eared. The "ei" combination seems wrong. It seems . . . weird, right?

Like spoon.

Another good example is "bundle." Sure, it initially seems fine. Bundle. A bundle of sticks. Bundling your insurance. A bundle of . . . wait, is that right? Bundle? Bunnnn-dull. That can't be the word. Bundle. Bun-dul-luh, maybe? Bunnn-dull. Strange word. Weird word, if you don't think about "weird" too long.

And how about "restaurant?" It's spelled strangely but it also doesn't seem like a real word. Rest-too-raunt. How about res-taw-u-rant? Restore-ront? Restaurant? A real word? Only if they give you a spoon. Spooooooooon.

There are some other words that seem unwordlike. Tomorrow, for instance. And Wednesday, which like February is generally pronounced wrong, but also doesn't seem like a real word. On Tuesday this week, try saying, "Tomorrow is Wednesday" 10 times in a row. Pretty soon it will feel like you're a toddler making nonsense sounds.

Rhythm was another semantic satiation word, as is honor. Honor? On-er? That can't be right? Rhythm. Rhythm. Rith-umm. I can't even keep rhythm with a spoon. Spoon. Spooooooon.

A couple of other words seem wrong because they are spelled strangely, which focuses you to study them longer: Epitome and awry. Why isn't it "aww-ree?" Or "Ep-pit-tohm?" Even said right, epitome repeated begins to make no sense.

A final nomination for the semantic satiation hall of fame is the word queue. In addition to having four unnecessary letters at the end (if you're moderate, you have to admit it's at least two letters too long). Queue. Quuuuuuuuuuuuu. Qqqqqqqqqqq. That can't be a word.

How many words are there like this? A lot. The real number is probably an unknown unknown. Unknown. Un-noooeeen.

That can't really be a word, can it?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.