the phobia list
April 14, 2001 12:49 AM   Subscribe

the phobia list
what are you afraid of?
posted by bwg (31 comments total)
 

posted by lagado at 4:56 AM on April 14, 2001


" Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth."

Why is this one prefixed with "Arach-"? Is there some kind of conspiracy going on between the spiders and the peanut butter manufacturers?

Spiders! Spiders in me peanut butta!
posted by Succa at 5:35 AM on April 14, 2001


That's kind of scary, lagado. So... does that mean I have a fear of fear?
posted by Ravagin at 5:36 AM on April 14, 2001


Oh, and by the way, I most certainly suffer from Mycophobia. Mushrooms...ew.

No, really.
posted by Succa at 5:37 AM on April 14, 2001


"Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons."
Yes! They had a question about this on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me a couple weeks ago, and I almost didn't believe them. Almost.
As I understand it, the Walloons are an ethnic group in Belgium. They must be pretty scary.
posted by Ravagin at 5:38 AM on April 14, 2001


Succa- I believe that actually comes from the latin word arachidna (a wild leguminous plant, a kind of chickling)
For you latin scholars out there, yes, it's feminine, first declension, and so forth.
(found it here)
posted by Ravagin at 5:43 AM on April 14, 2001


Yes, Walloons are the ones that don't speak Flemish, which is a very scary language in itself.
posted by lagado at 5:47 AM on April 14, 2001


I'm afraid I don't know what I'm afraid of.
posted by briank at 5:48 AM on April 14, 2001


Shouldn't there be an "excessive" in front of some of those definitions? Or is agliophobia normal?!
posted by andrew cooke at 5:49 AM on April 14, 2001


Succa, you must go back an face your greatest fear.

Conquer the Mushroom!
The Mushroom is the King of Foods!
And Meat for Vegetarians!
Enjoyable either dried or fresh.

It's only a fungus, after all.


(p.s. Don't think about that last one)
posted by lagado at 5:58 AM on April 14, 2001


Here's a good one:
Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions

No wonder I find MeFi so damned terrifying. I require 100% objectivity or I'm outta here!


(And life must really suck for barophobics. At least those living on Earth.)
posted by Dirjy at 6:32 AM on April 14, 2001


Try to replace all the phobias with philias. Suddenly quite a lot scarier.
posted by Hjorth at 8:39 AM on April 14, 2001


The fear of clowns phobia always makes me think of the "Cheers" episode in which Cliff recounts a b-day party his mother threw when he was a lad; no one but the hired clown showed up, so it was just Clavin & the clown for several hours; he then mimicked the sort of "blah" faces that he & the clown exchanged during that time. Tangential, eh?
Another Cheers ref: Frasier freaks out at the very thought of an insect on his person; he immediately rips his shirt off. I can relate.
posted by davidmsc at 10:39 AM on April 14, 2001


"I invest in this crazy test..."
posted by Lirp at 10:43 AM on April 14, 2001


"To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kind of scary. I've wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad." --Jack Handy
posted by shinybeast at 11:17 AM on April 14, 2001


What am I afraid of? Mostly, of being found out. I have Imposter Syndrome. I don't think there's a -phobia name for it...
posted by kindall at 11:58 AM on April 14, 2001


kindall, I've tried to explain that to someone before. I have it as well. The short and long of it is, anytime I'm doing something challenging, I always think that I'm way in over my head and that people will find out that I'm a total misfit and that I lied and cheated to get where I am; even though none of that is true. It's like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". One day, you expect to walk into work and have everyone pointing at you with haunted faces and making that horrible wailing noise...
posted by fooljay at 1:15 PM on April 14, 2001


But it's not Atychiphobia (fear of failure). I don't fear failing... I just fear people discovering that I'm a boob.
posted by fooljay at 1:17 PM on April 14, 2001


Enochlophobia - fear of crowds. How about an intense dislike of crowds? Is that Quasimetaenochlophobia?

I did have Ecophobia and Soceraphobia for a while, but that's another story...

Wish they had "fear of sour milk". I assume that it would be acerolactophobia.

These made me laugh:
Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
posted by fooljay at 1:35 PM on April 14, 2001


> The Mushroom is the King of Foods!
And Meat for Vegetarians!
Enjoyable either dried or fresh.

heh, that is *so* true. After a year of strict veganism, I swear they really do taste like meat to me. I almost feel guilty eating them.

mmmm, so good.
posted by Craig at 3:26 PM on April 14, 2001


Albuminurophobia- Fear of kidney disease.

every time i wake up with a hangover.
posted by sugarfish at 3:51 PM on April 14, 2001


kindall, I've tried to explain that to someone before. I have it as well.

Lots of smart people get Imposter Syndrome, just because lots of smart people have low self-esteem. Some days I look around at the smart people I work with, who are the some of the smartest people I've ever met. They give every appearance of accepting me and respecting the work I do, and I think to myself -- there is no way I'm as good as these people think I am. What happens to me when they figure that out?

You would think I would get over it eventually, because I keep getting results, and often without feeling like I'm working nearly as hard as I should be. But the self-doubt never seems to go away entirely. I've been faking it in the job market for eleven years now...
posted by kindall at 5:33 PM on April 14, 2001


My God, it's almost as if I wrote that. Let me guess...It drives you to work longer hours, take on a herculean project or number of projects which regular humans marvel at and you are constantly keeping score to make sure that you're ahead of the scepticism curve...
posted by fooljay at 8:43 PM on April 14, 2001


Well, I have plenty of incentive to work long hours these days without my imposter complex. I worked through the worst of it in my twenties and I don't let it get to me too much anymore. But it still nags at me sometimes... and I sure know where you're comin' from, fj.
posted by kindall at 9:16 PM on April 14, 2001


Sometimes, it seems like the world is run by a bunch of phronemophobics.

Also, the entry for "proctophobia" gave me a puzzled look on my face.

But, the best entry in this list goes to:

Sesquipedalophobia- Fear of long words

Mahahahaha.

Gee, is it 1 AM already?
posted by Succa at 9:51 PM on April 14, 2001


fooljay and kindall, you guys need to take a holiday.
(perhaps together?)

anyway back to work.

Champignons
Straw Mushrooms
Abalone Mushroooms
Pocini Mushrooms
Shiitake Mushrooms...
posted by lagado at 5:13 AM on April 15, 2001


Please stop with the mushroom talk before I lose my head.

You know, I think it goes back to the time we went to the Contintental Mushroom factory, and a mushroom killed my dad.

No, wait, that wasn't it. My mycophobia (and believe me, it's there, although it's not so much a "phobia" as a general revulsion) comes from a moment in my childhood. My mom, dad and brother had just come back from a long walk in the fields near my house. I, being the childhood geek of the household, had spent the day in the basement, probably writing LOGO code or playing Dig-Dug or whatever. Anyway, when my family returned, I went to greet them at the front door, and my dad said he had a present for me. He told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands. I did. He plopped a large, smooth object into my hands.

And when I opened my eyes, I was holding the biggest mushroom I had ever seen. This thing was the size of a small dog. I took one look at this fungus, sitting in my hands, stem pointing upward, and I just started screaming! I dropped it to the floor, ran to the bathroom, and started washing my hands. My dad, apparently happy that he elicited the response he wanted, sat there laughing at me.

I think it's the smell of them that bothers me the most. Awful.
posted by Succa at 7:10 AM on April 15, 2001


                           sesquipedalophobia
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia


Someone has a sick sense of humor... Perhaps it wasn't long enough?
posted by fooljay at 6:59 PM on April 15, 2001


Jeez, Succa, that's a sad tale. You have my sympathies, kids can be so impressionable about things like that.

I was facetiously wondering to myself whether you had somehow been "terrorized by a mushroom or something" when you were young.

Now I can see that you actually were: by a mushroom the size of a small dog! Christ!
posted by lagado at 6:11 AM on April 16, 2001


Small dog sized mushroom. Yum, that's a tasty image.

My fear isn't listed. It's related to flying, but it's not the actual being in the air, not the fear of a crash. My fear is of being sucked from the plane should a door pop open or something else happen to create a hole in the fuselage. I sit on aisle seats as far from doors as possible. Thank G-d for internet booking that gives you a schematic of the plane to use when choosing your seats. I have to fly on Friday. I'm already starting to feel the dread.
posted by Dreama at 9:03 AM on April 16, 2001


I'm afraid of spiders; whenever I enter a room, I do a four corner check, to make sure there are no spiders on the ceiling.

My sister is afraid of clowns. She too, performs a four corner check. She is probably worse off than myself.
posted by jessicool at 9:05 PM on April 17, 2001


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