WORD why does it automatically go to 11pt.? 12pt. is the norm. why do some WORD documents show 8pt. asviually different sizes?

The default font in Word 2013 is 11 point Calibri. If you paste content into it using Merge Formatting or Keep Text Only, the text you paste will take on this formatting. If you use Keep Source Formatting, it will be pasted in its original format. If you have the Paste Options button displayed (which it is by default), you can select from among these choices whenever you paste; you can also select the default paste format at File | Options | Advanced: Cut, copy, and paste.

You can also, if you choose, change the default font formatting. See here for instructions.

I wonder why it looks even smaller than what I have seen 8pt. to be. Since it 'says' it only goes to 8pt. why it ids so much smaller. 

Doug Robbins' suggestion of a screen shot might help. Here you talk about "it" three times without a referent. The font drop-down only goes to 8 but you can have smaller sizes.

Sizes can also be actually larger but zoomed to look smaller on screen.

I wonder why it looks even smaller than what I have seen 8pt. to be. Since it 'says' it only goes to 8pt. why it ids so much smaller.

To add to what Suzanne wrote, if you are saying that the text in some documents looks very small even at larger point sizes, you may have to increase the zoom; you can use the Zoom slider at the bottom right (on the status bar).

I am not sure exactly what you are saying.  Is the name of the font always the same?

Can you show us a screen shot of the issue, or put a document that exhibits the issue in a shared folder on your OneDrive and post a link to that folder back here.