Be very afraid: There’s a term for every fear
By PAULA LaROCQUE / The Dallas Morning News
Dallas Morning News , TX
June 19 2004
The horror genre has a concept that seems far more laughable than
horrifying – the concept of the “Invisible Man.” I mean: An empty
suit – how scary is that? Yet terrified folks flee, shrieking:
Aiieee! There’s nothing there! Literally, running from nothing.
Only those afraid of everything would run from nothing, if you follow
me. And there is in fact such a fear – pantophobia, which means fear
of everything. Fear of nothing – unless it’s the kind of “nothing”
presented by the Invisible Man – also has a name. It’s hypophobia,
or the absence of fear.
Fear of everything and fear of nothing are equally irrational,
of course. And there’s a difference between a simple fear and
a full-blown phobia. But judging from the huge number of “phobia”
words, there’s much to fear.
A few better-known terrors are claustrophobia, agoraphobia,
ochlophobia, ophidiophobia, musophobia and brontophobia – more
commonly known as fear of closed spaces, open spaces, crowds, snakes,
mice and thunder.
Certain fears are so prevalent that popular culture capitalizes on
them. The 1990 film Arachnophobia took fear of spiders to a comic
extreme, for example. Acrophobia, or fear of heights, was a central
theme in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 movie Vertigo. Fear of heights
also afflicted British TV’s beloved Inspector Morse. Aviatophobia
lent novelist Erica Jong the richly symbolic title of her 1973 book,
Fear of Flying.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists many odd, even outlandish phobia
words. Such words also can be found in the Insomniac’s Dictionary of
the Outrageous, Odd, and Unusual by Paul Hellweg; Crazy English by
Richard Lederer; and Words at Play by O.V. Michaelsen.
For some, apparently, hell really is other people. Anthropophobia
is fear of people; androphobia is fear of men; gynephobia, fear of
women; pediophobia, children; parthenophobia; young girls; xenophobia,
strangers or foreigners.
But do we really need a word such as armenophobia? Is fear of Armenians
a viable category?
Some fears are understandable even if you don’t share them
– dentophobia, for example, fear of going to the dentist. Or
agrizoophobia (fear of wild animals), algophobia (pain), poinephobia
(punishment), pyrophobia (fire) and hematophobia (blood).
And a biggie, thanatophobia – fear of death.
One can understand policophobia (fear of the police) in certain
circumstances, and even more readily politicophobia (fear of
politicians). But blennophobia, alliumphobia and arachibutyrophobia ?
Fear of slime, of garlic, of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof
of the mouth?
There’s no shortage of curious phobias. Tridecaphobia, fear of the
number 13, is well-known. I was surprised to find we need such a word
as porphyrophobia – fear of the color purple – until I discovered
chromophobia, fear of color in general. There’s a word for those who
can’t stand prosperity – chrematophobia, fear of wealth – and another
for those afraid of getting good news – euphobia.
One group of phobias makes you wonder if folks have been reading too
much DaVinci Code. Paterophobia, for example – fear of the Fathers of
the early Church. Ecclesiophobia means fear of church; hagiophobia,
fear of holy things; and homilophobia, fear of sermons.
Hard on the heels of those phobias may be hadephobia, fear of hell.
Could Franklin D. Roosevelt have had phobophobia in mind when he said,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”? Phobophobia is fear
of fearing.
Wordsmiths have fears, too. Metrophobia, for example, is fear of
poetry. And don’t mention “Madam I’m Adam” to sufferers of aibohphobia,
fear of palindromes. (A palindrome is something that reads the same
backward as forward. Notice that the cleverly named aibohphobia is
a palindrome).
There’s even phobologophobia – a malady that could make reading this
column a nightmare. It means fear of phobia words.
Paula LaRocque, former Dallas Morning News writing coach, is author
of “The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well” and
“Championship Writing.” Send e-mail to plarocque @sbcglobal.net.