Semantic Satiation

A psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

If you have a toddler (or two) in your house right now, then I bet you'll be glad to know that there is a word for what happens when you say a word too many times! The girls are into their fourteenth month, and I can tell that the language "explosion" isn't far off. So naturally, I've been trying really hard to teach them new words. I want to break down the different types of Semantic Satiation, as I see it.

 There's the Semantic Satiation of words, obviously. Just the other day, as we played in the girls room, I caught a glimpse of a familiar look on Margot's face. "Did you go poop?" I prodded. "Huh?" Mo quickly responds. Even if I know the answer to this burning question, I ask it regardless in hopes that it will be enough to plant the words in their brains. This time, though, I spent a good five minutes trying to teach the girls how to actually say the word Poop. It was actually kind of fun ;-) unfortunately, not all words that fall victim to Semantic Satiation are similarly amusing. Lately I've grown pretty bored with the word gentle, for example. I'm thinking of whipping out the Thesaurus for some different options. Or, to shake things up, you could try using the same word in a different language!

 Then there's Semantic Satiation of books. Let me just tell you, if I never saw the book I Love You Through and Through again, it would be a joyous one. Other books on this list:

*Are You My Mother?

*The Going to Bed Book

*Moo, Baa, La La La

*Elmer

*Goodnight, I Love You

This one can be so hard sometimes! Of course I want to encourage my girls to read and show them that it's a wonderful pass time to engage in. However, after the 18th consecutive time of reading one of these stories (with perfect inflection and voices, mind you), I just can't. I actually hid a book one time because I thought I'd go mad if I had to read it one more time! These books are the ones where I almost have an outer body experience, I just go into auto pilot. The words mean nothing anymore, and without my famous narrating skills, I admit I get totally lost in what the stories even about.

So really, I suppose there are only two sort-of different types of Semantic Satiation. If you've been feeling a little crazy or off lately, it's not you. It's this. I'm amazed I can hold any sort of conversation at the end of the day, what with spending majority of my day talking about poop and the like. For friends without kids, this is why I suck at making words now.