Word weirdness
 

Do you ever do a mental double-take looking at a common, everyday word?

It happens to me periodically. The spelling looks weird or it just doesn't seem to click anymore as an actual word. The best example I can recall had to do with the word "was." I kept looking at it and had serious trouble locking onto it - i.e., is that really a word?!?

I just had another instance of it with the word "white." I looked at the spelling - particularly the "h" - and it boggled my mind for awhile. I'm better now.

Anyone else experience this phenomena?

Yes, its happened to me. Not often but maybe every other year or so. As you said, a simple word looks 'wrong.' The last time (can't remember the word) I even used spell check. When that came up fine, I figured I had typed a homonym or simply another correct word, not the one I wanted. Then a sip of coffee, and the incident passed.

Others haved mentioned this phenomenom to me, so we're not the only ones. I bet a grad student has written a boring thesis on it, too.

it must have something to do with time travel...i can feel it.

"what"

Gets me from time to time.

Every so often, yes. It can happen with either the spelling while looking at it, or even hearing the same word over and over, it begins to lose its meaning and just sound like a random word.

Most of the time, of course, this just happens in everyday life and while you are aware of it, no one else is (unless you mention it). The one time this really caught me in a bad position, though, was in high school. I went to a concert with a group of friends, and the parents of the guy who was taking us asked us to write our parents' names and phone numbers for them in case anything happened, and I completely blanked on my dad's name, John. I could NOT, for the life of me, figure out if the 'h' came before or after the 'o'. Completely random, completely bizarre. I stalled for like 2 minutes until I came to my senses.

"which" does that to me from time to time...

FM

oh and quite often I get mixed up between the french and the english spelling of some words that are very similar, yet a tiny bit different. But I know this may not apply to you all ;)

FM

Me too. Menage a trois and threesome. Both are equally impossible for me to spell. Or attain.

I get this all the time with all kinds of words. I hate when it happens, because it seriously bothers me for hours...

This has happened to me as well. I also have had (rare) moments when I am trying to think of a fairly common word and have no clue as to what it is.

"Pencil" drove me mad for several hours once...

but then the doctor pulled it out and you began to relax?

word.

AnalBumCover.


The words just don't look right for some reason. :)

Wow, an ABC sighting!

Its funny you brought this up. Just yesterday I had the same problem with "welcome". I knew it was spelled right but it looked very weird. The letters just didn't look right.

I've had this happen as well - it is almost like an anti-deja-vu.

It's a glich in the Matrix.

Agreed.

dola, even though I am not sure what a glich is ;)

this one is easy -- it's the word "the" that starts looking wonky to me when I'm writing for long periods of time.

Miss me? :cool:

You're reading it wrong.

It's: An alBum Cover

Wow, talk about word weirdness... I've been reading it wrong all along!

Two thumbs up on this one.