Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
One who displays “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words” suffers from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. It used to be that you heard about claustrophobia (close places) or agoraphobia (open places) and more recently Coulrophobia (clowns), but now you can sort through a handy dandy list of things to be phobic about.
It is enough to give someone an irrational fear of long and faintly improbable-sounding words.
In fact according to an exhaustive list of unusual phobias the fear of long words already exists and has a name.
A catalogue of fears unearthed by New Scientist magazine, claims sufferers have hippopotomonstrosesquip
pedaliophobia, or sesquippedaliophobia for short, which describes “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words”.The list of hundreds of unlikely irrational fears, which can leave their sufferers with shortness of breath, rapid breathing, an irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread was taken from a US counselling website.
Among the bizarre crippling dreads listed on changethatsrightnow.com are the ridiculous sounding zemmiphobia, or fear of the great mole rat, and alektorophobia, or a fear of chickens.
We would just point out that the "exhaustive" list is far from complete. It does not list the most important fear: Kabourophobia. Or the even more frightening Cyanokabourophobia.
(Side note, my youngest boy simply piped up at the dinner table one night with the word Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - and then spelled it correctly. He's going to be a riot at parties.)
UPDATE: My son, and commenter clifto, caught a typo, direct from the MSM article! (I had my son check it. In fact, when I told him I had posted about this he specifically asked if they had spelled it correctly, pointing out that the extra 'p' is a common misspelling.)
Weird Stuff | Gaius Thursday, 10 January , 2008
By NortonPete, Thursday, 10 January , 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Interesting list but I couldn’t find “High Anxiety”, or a phobia of “Circus people, carnies”, or any morbid fear of having a liberal for a President.
Your son should run for president, immediately.
By Mwalimu Daudi, Thursday, 10 January , 2008 @ 7:20 pm
Here are few omissions from the list:
“surgeophobia” - the fear that Bush was right about Iraq all along.
“aphobia” - the fear of one-letter words. Also known as “iphobia”.
“holophobia” - the fear of watching yet another episode of Star Trek TNG that takes place on the Holodeck. On the other hand …are there really no actual planets left in the Galaxy to explore?
“undereverybedtherelurksatheocratophobia” - the fear of a conservative Christian holding public office.
“youmeantheyreallydontlikemeafterallophobia” - the fear a movie star has of making a picture that bombs at the box office.
“magooophobia” - the fear of Mr. Magoo.
“fearophobia” - the fear of fear itself. Sometimes known as FDR Syndrome.
And what has the Bush administration done about treating these and other illnesses? Nothing!
By Gaius, Thursday, 10 January , 2008 @ 7:32 pm
I would have defined iPhobia as a fear that your music player might shock you.
Oh wait. That’s not irrational.
http://bluecrabboulevard.com/2008/01/09/izap/
By clifto, Thursday, 10 January , 2008 @ 7:55 pm
Are you sure there’s a double P in that word? “sesquipedalian” is one of my all-time favorite words and it looks like part of the construct.
By Gaius, Thursday, 10 January , 2008 @ 8:17 pm
Heh - my son just looked at this for me and you’re right. Damned media!
By Bleepless, Thursday, 10 January , 2008 @ 9:13 pm
Where did they get these phobias? Adrian Monk?
By martian, Friday, 11 January , 2008 @ 12:35 pm
conserblogaphobia - an intense fear of conservative bloggers; it can cause liberals and MSM “journalists” to get hives and the dreaded “heart palpitations” (my mother-in-law used to get those - nobody knew why, I don’t think she was a liberal).