Approximately four and a half months after 9/11, the typicality of airplane returned to its normal level. These findings suggest that because of the amount of media coverage surrounding the events of 9/11, the word airplane was so frequently used that it became as common as a typical vehicle. Exemplar models provide explanations for concepts’ typicality ratings, the effects of typicality on categorization time, and effects due to the variability of instances within a category.