Let me explain. The phobia Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words. You can see for yourself how long it is. You can also see [here a few more. ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zhsjrj6&ved=2ahUKEwiNtr7mwf_oAhWCShUIHbsoCU0QFjABegQICxAH&usg=AOvVaw1y1SVow5gjlQv35bVS9-T9)
Another example is “aibophobia”. I’m pretty sure this one is satire, but it is the fear of palindromes, and it is of course a palindrome. Can anybody help me out here? Is it just scientists having a laugh or is there a tradition?
In: Biology
Well aibophobia and hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia aren’t real phobias, they’re just jokes, so it makes sense to give them joke names. Anyone can make up a word and say it.
Real phobias have regular names that aren’t ironic.
Neither of these phobias are actually recognized by any psychiatric organization, and so the names aren’t actually constructed by doctors with an interest in categorizing and treating these as disorders; they were named by random people trying to be funny.
Looking at the long one, we can see that it’s completely ridiculous just by breaking it down – “Hippo” comes from the Greek for “horse,” and “Poto” comes from the Greek for river (hence the name hippopotamus – river horse). Monstro comes from Latin, originally meaning “to warn or foretell” hence a “monster” being something that we should be warned of. And “sesquipedal” means “a foot and a half,” which is the only part of this that refers to something that’s too long. In fact, another commonly-used name for this fear is “sesquipedalophobia,” which is obviously a neater name. Some person just tacked a bunch of random prefixes on it to be funny and it became popular.
Same deal with “aibohphobia,” this is a fear that was named by a person to make a joke. If anyone actually suffers from this fear or anxiety, obviously a doctor would not name or categorize it in a way that causes them stress. You just picked some of the ironic examples that were made to be silly, rather than named as actual psychological issues.
I think you just happen to be pulling the most ironic ones.
The first one you mention makes sense to be long; “fear of long words” isn’t an easy thing to Latinize in a short word.
There are many, many phobias that aren’t remotely ironic. Arachnophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, acrophobia, triskaidekaphobia, etc.
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