Phew. Another phenomenon I thought I was neurotic for suffering from, revealed by Wikipedia: semantic saturation.
Have you ever had to repeat a word over and over again really quickly? I most recently remember this happening to me with the word “false.” Just say it out loud. “False.” Break it down. “false.” Again: false false false false.
It just becomes letters and sounds—I can’t convince myself the thing ever had meaning.
Why it happens is pretty cool:
The explanation for the phenomenon was that verbal repetition repeatedly aroused a specific neural pattern in the cortex which corresponds to the meaning of the word. Rapid repetition causes both the peripheral sensorimotor activity and the central neural activation to fire repeatedly, which is known to cause reactive inhibition, hence a reduction in the intensity of the activity with each repetition.
Neural adaptation: useful for tricking your vision, and now, your language.
[via Best of Wikipedia]
