Make Your Point > Archived Issues > JAMAIS VU
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pronounce
JAMAIS VU:
Say it "ZHA may VOO."
To hear it, click here.
Dictionaries also list several other ways to say it, including "zha MAY voo" and "ZHUH may VOO."
connect this word to others:
We peeked once before at the term jamais vu while playing a game called Uncommon Opposites: I gave you jamais vu, literally "never seen," and you came up with its more common opposite, déjà vu, literally "already seen."
Because, lately, our lives have been veering into some weird and surreal circumstances as the coronavirus pandemic continues, I figured it would be both fun and useful to spend some more time with jamais vu. It may be one of those odd sensations that unites us. As in, "I feel a shudder of jamais vu as I look for the ninety-third time today at the refrigerator. Whose kitchen is this? Where am I?" I bet you've felt that, too.
Jamais vu and déjà vu have some colorful relatives worth meeting:
First, there's déjà lu, "already read." For when you say to yourself, "Haven't I read this before? Looks so familiar."
Next, déjà entendu: "already heard." "Haven't I heard this song before? Sounds so familiar."
Third, déjà lu. Hee hee.
Finally, presque vu: "almost seen." For when you can't quite remember something. "Wait, wait, don't tell me. It's on the tip of my tongue."
And yes, all these terms are fair game to use in English: they appear in some (if not all) English dictionaries.
In many of those terms, you see vu, French for "seen." You can trace vu back to the Latin videre, "to see." That means our term jamais vu is cousins with words like video, vision, visible, revise, evident, and vis__ ("a long view of something, or a long stretch of time or events").
Could you recall that last word?
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
This term is French for "never seen."
Jamais vu is the weird feeling that you're seeing or experiencing something for the first time, even though you're not--it's actually something familiar to you.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech: noun, the uncountable kind: "a sense of jamais vu," "he's experiencing jamais vu," "this gives me a shudder of jamais vu."
Other forms: none are common.
You can use this term like an adjective, though. Some scholars add a hyphen: "these jamais-vu sensations." And other scholars--probably the wild, hard-partying types--throw caution, hyphens, and even italics to the wind: "these jamais vu episodes."
how to use it:
This term can have a serious, clinical tone, but it doesn't have to.
Use it to describe the eerie feeling that the familiar is unfamiliar. It might happen when you're looking at some familiar word, phrase, face, person, object, or place. Or, it might happen when you're in some familiar situation.
You might want to keep this rare, fancy French term in italics. But some academic folks have done away with the italics. Follow their lead, if you like.
When you use this term, your listeners will probably figure out what you mean, since it looks and sounds so much like "déjà vu."
It's so rare, though, that many writers are still glossing it: that is, they're defining it immediately after they use it. You might choose to do that, too.
You might talk about feeling or experiencing jamais vu, suffering from jamais vu, laughing off or shaking off your sense of jamais vu, etc.
examples:
"There were terrifying, sudden moments when objects, concepts and even people that the chaplain had lived with almost all his life inexplicably took on an unfamiliar and irregular aspect that he had never seen before and which made them totally strange: jamais vu."
— Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961
"Others have argued that the jamais vu experience is common and can be triggered by fatigue, substance abuse, complex partial seizures and other psychopathological states."
— German E. Berrios and John R. Hodges, Memory Disorders in Psychiatric Practice, 2000
has this page helped you understand "jamais vu"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "jamais vu" without saying "feeling like the familiar is eerily unfamiliar" or "feeling like you can't recognize what you should be able to."
try it out:
According to this article, Dr. Chris Moulin of the University of Leeds discovered, during a study, that many people experience jamais vu when their minds get exhausted from looking at the same word for too long.
The article explains:
"[Dr. Moulin] asked 92 subjects to write common words such as 'door' 30 times in 60 seconds.
When they were later asked to describe their experiences, 68% showed signs of jamais vu.
...Some participants reported that 'it looked like I was spelling something else,' it 'sounded like a made-up word' and 'I began to doubt that I was writing the correct word for the meaning.'"
Has this ever happened to you? Have you experienced jamais vu when some particular word or phrase lost its meaning and looked totally foreign? If so, talk about it. If not, talk about a time you felt any kind of glitch in your mind, or in your perception of reality.
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
This month, our game is called "Recollections."
In each issue, I'll share a quote from some work--it might be a song, a poem, or a book--and you'll come up with that work's title. You can assemble the title, highlighted in the vertical blue line below, by recalling words to fit into the puzzle. Scrap paper might help!
From the previous issue:
"On and on the music plays,
Memories in paraphrase,
Falling past my window
Like the falling rain."
Those words appear in the song "Holiday," by The Birthday Massacre.
If you'd like to review any of the words from the puzzle, give them a click: hackneyed, obdurate, rabble, iconic, nadir, fabricate, pacify.
Try this one today:
"Listen for the sound,
Of the dusty train that's comin',
To sweep us all away.
I can hear the rails a rattlin' against the hectic fray so,
Set the bone with a cardboard splint,
And strike the nail against the flint,
And set the fields on fire."
In what work does the quote above appear?
1) verb: "to flow back, to fade away, or to become less"
2) proper noun: "a very peaceful, very beautiful place"
3) verb: "to waste time or cause a delay"
4) verb: "to change back and forth in a random way"
5) noun: " the state of being extremely common, as if everywhere"
6) noun: "a temporary period of stopping, holding, or waiting"
7) adjective: "dull, weary, exhausted, and unable to care anymore"
review this word:
But a pretty close opposite of JAMAIS VU is
A. INSTANT KARMA.
B. INSTANT RECOGNITION.
C. INSTANT GRATIFICATION.
2. That Talking Heads song seems to be about jamais vu: "_____."
A. Dreams walking in broad daylight... 365 degrees
B. This is not my beautiful house! ... Same as it ever was
C. I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire. Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
We peeked once before at the term jamais vu while playing a game called Uncommon Opposites: I gave you jamais vu, literally "never seen," and you came up with its more common opposite, déjà vu, literally "already seen."
This term is French for "never seen."
Part of speech: noun, the uncountable kind: "a sense of jamais vu," "he's experiencing jamais vu," "this gives me a shudder of jamais vu."
This term can have a serious, clinical tone, but it doesn't have to.
"There were terrifying, sudden moments when objects, concepts and even people that the chaplain had lived with almost all his life inexplicably took on an unfamiliar and irregular aspect that he had never seen before and which made them totally strange: jamais vu."
Explain the meaning of "jamais vu" without saying "feeling like the familiar is eerily unfamiliar" or "feeling like you can't recognize what you should be able to."
According to this article, Dr. Chris Moulin of the University of Leeds discovered, during a study, that many people experience jamais vu when their minds get exhausted from looking at the same word for too long.
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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