Gita Explained
Arjuna speaks11.39

वायुर्यमोऽग्निर्वरुणः शशाङ्कः प्रजापतिस्त्वं प्रपितामहश्च।नमो नमस्तेऽस्तु सहस्रकृत्वः पुनश्च भूयोऽपि नमो नमस्ते॥

vāyur yamo ’gnir varuṇaḥ śaśāṅkaḥprajāpatis tvaṃ prapitāmahaś canamo namas te ’stu sahasra-kṛtvaḥpunaś ca bhūyo ’pi namo namas te

Word by word
vāyuḥ — the god of windyamaḥ — the god of deathagniḥ — the god of firevaruṇaḥ — the god of waterśaśa-aṅkaḥ — the moon-Godprajāpatiḥ — Brahmatvam — youprapitāmahaḥ — the great-grandfatherca — andnamaḥ — my salutationsnamaḥ — my salutationste — unto youastu — let there besahasra-kṛtvaḥ — a thousand timespunaḥ ca — and againbhūyaḥ — againapi — alsonamaḥ — (offering) my salutationsnamaḥ te — offering my salutations unto you

The verse says

You are the wind, the lord of endings, fire, the lord of waters, the moon, the father of creatures, and the great-grandfather. Honour to you, a thousand times, and again, and again, honour to you.

In plain words

The naming becomes repetition.

Namo namas te 'stu sahasra-kṛtvaḥ — honour to you, a thousand times. And then he says it again anyway.

He has stopped trying to be accurate and started doing the only thing left.

Where you've felt this · in community

Your neighbour thanks you for something genuinely large and runs out of ways to say it, so she just keeps saying thank you. By the fourth time it has stopped being words. You both know it, and neither of you minds.

Going deeper

Repetition takes over when description has failed, and this verse is where that happens openly.

Arjuna has spent twenty verses trying to say what he is seeing. Here he gives up on saying and starts bowing, verbally, over and over. The content of the line is almost nothing: a list of gods he has already named, and then the same two syllables repeated.

This is the same thing Chapter 10 identified when it called repetition the highest of offerings.

And it is recognisable from ordinary life, which is why it does not read as empty. When something is too big for what you can say about it, people do not become more eloquent. They say one small thing several times, and everybody present understands exactly what is meant.