Reiterative Occupancy: How Borrowed Thought Acquires a New Address

Intellectual Phrogging names the sustained and insufficiently disclosed inhabitation of another person’s distinctive conceptual architecture. This essay introduces Reiterative Occupancy as a proposed social-epistemic mechanism through which repeated, variably altered, and insufficiently attributed presentations can shift perceived provenance from a documented originator to a later presenter. It distinguishes iteration from reiteration, separates memory error from strategic conduct, and introduces Attributional Crossover as a testable audience-relative outcome. Research on source monitoring, cryptomnesia, repeated idea elaboration, processing fluency, illusory truth, source credibility, idea appropriation, and workplace credit supports component mechanisms but does not validate the full construct. The documented evolution of The Landlord’s Game into Monopoly provides a historical illustration, not direct empirical validation. Independent interdisciplinary essay; not peer reviewed.