Semantic Satiation Explained, Perhaps

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Here in Australia we have a beloved scientist called Dr. Karl (real name Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki … biography) who does spots on ABC Radio.

A few days ago he talked about semantic satiation … and it got me (interested)!

Semantic satiation (also semantic saturation) is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then processes the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

So (search engine)d it … let’s forget the pretense … Googled it … and got …

Link to Wikipedia Semantic Satiation which is a good read, and is the origin of quote above.
Other links via Google search of Semantic Satiation.