have you ever found.........

[archhippy]

when your writing letters or just sitting there do you find that sometimes the words sound funny or odd like the other day i was talking to my dad about a bloke called george and his name suddenly seemed funny .some one tell me im not alone.

[andy hughes]

No you are not alone - I think this happens to most people, but they don't feel it necessary to comment, or maybe they are worried about what others will think. A sure way to escalate the 'strangeness' of a word is to repeat it about thirty times - 'towel' is a fine example. Lenny Bruce who confronted language and social no-go areas as a matter of course used to do the same thing with the 'f' word in his stage show, just to make a point that words can lose their meaning, and their damage potential, if you approach them from another angle.

[woodpam]

Toast is one of my favourite words. All it's meanings and applications are pleasant as far as I'm concerned, but try Andy's towel x 30 trick on it and it's very wierd indeed.

[Andromeda]

You are definitely not alone. I am always doing it. It is always bizarre when the word suddenly doesn't seem to be the word any more. Andy's trick does work, although I don't seem to need 30 times to lose the meaning - usually 10 or so times is enough.

Andy

[wildwood]

Thanks for bringing this up doodlebug. It is not something that I wanted to talk about to someone I know, in case they think I was going gaga.
I reminds me of the first time I experienced deja vu as a youngster. It really freaked me out.

[archhippy]

thanx you guys im glad im not going mad thankyou de ja vous is a hell of alot worse trust me every time it hapens i get freaked!

[WaldoMcFroog]

As mentioned, this is very common. The reason it occurs is because letters and words do not have an inate meaning of the things they describe - the meanings are learned. The letters 'd', 'o' and 'g' may well conjure up an image of a canine but there is nothing to say that those letters couldn't be applied to a.n.other noun (or indeed verb, adjective etc) and over time assume common recognition. Sometimes, particularly through repetition, the brain shakes the association from the words and we then find them funny. How can the word 'George' possibly sum up the human being over there? It doesn't define or describe him in any way. etc.

[mikewith]

A word I find myself writing repeatedly at work is 'empty'. When you see it often enough on the page it loses all sense of itself and simply doesn't look like a word at all.... much less a word that makes sense or can be said out loud and sound 'English'!