Is there a word for this?

[RigaMortus2]

Have you ever begun to hear a word before, a not-so-frequently-used word, and that word just starts to pop up all over the place? Is there a word or phrase for that?

I keep hearing the word 'gumption' all of a sudden. I heard it in a couple movies/tv shows lately. And a person I know used that word. Now I am subconciously finding myself using it.

That seems to happen from time to time. A word that isn't very frequenely used starts to be used. What is that called (not Deja Vu).

 

[Ilium]

It sounds like a concept related to the meme

 

[Richards]

Synchronicity, perhaps?

Johnathan

 

[Kurashu]

I hear shredded wheat all over the place now. But I know what you're talking about. I call it the vocabulary test effect: whenever I'd have to take a vocab test in highschool, it'd be all words I'd never heard before -- which is cool, I like new words -- but after the test, I'd hear the everywhere. Like RWAAAAAAAAAR! Media: i am in ur brain, helping u learn wordz.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And, for the record, "gumption" is a fairly old word.

Kinda like "moxie."

 

[Slife]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader-Meinhof_Phenomenon

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No joke- I lived in Stuttgart when the Baader-Meinhoff gang was active, and hadn't discussed them in years...

Now, counting this thread, I've had to discuss them 3 times in the past week!

Synchronicity involving the Baader-Meinhoff gang...whodathunkit?

 

[Dioltach]

When I was a teenager, I'd never heard the word 'tryst' before (at least, not consciously). Then I came across it four times in two days. I remember that one instance was in War of the Twins, and one in a song by T'Pau, but the other two I can't remember.

At the time I was struck by the phenomenon.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I hate it when this kind of thing happens with songs...

I got turned down by someone I thought was particularly cool, and for a week solid, Jane Child's "I don't wanna fall in love" was in heavy rotation. One time, my roomie and I got in my car to go to dinner, I turned on the ignition, and it was just coming on...so I flipped to my second favorite station, and it was in the middle of the song...so I flipped once more, just in time to hear the outro. He laughed.

After dinner, we got back in my car, and it was the first song out of the gates on an all-request show. ARGH!

OTOH, another friend of mine at the time noted that every time she got into a car with me, Boston's "Long Time" played at some point.

 

[Huw]

I'm not a psychologist (but I am a linguistic and information scientist), and I reckon this is what's happening:

You're receiving rarely used words all the time. Your brain is looking for patterns. When you perceive the same rare word more than once, your brain goes "that's unusual", and suddenly you become conscious of both previous instances of that word. Now you've become more aware of the word, you're going to notice it more in print, in overheard conversations, in song lyrics that before you'd have just overlooked as background noise. Your perception has changed, not the frequency of word use.