Phobology (1 of 3)
Spending time on anxieties in an anxious time.
For “A Flurry of Phobias,” (Word Ways #6.3, 1973), Dmitri Borgmann found a lot of things to be afraid of—all of which had not one, but multiple words ending in -phobia that corresponded to them.
A phobia is an irrational fear, one that impairs the ability to live a normal life. We’re all a little afraid of death, but you need to be a lot more neurotic about it to qualify as phobic. Some would argue it’s normal to be neurotic in this day and age (“Have you seen the headlines lately???”), but I deny that. Life should be enjoyed, even when that’s hard.
Borgmann left out some of the best-known phobias to challenge the reader. I’ve included those—expanding the list to fifty—and added thoughts to talk out each fear, since that’s the healthy thing to do. A lot of this is an excuse to be grateful for fears I don’t have instead of fixating on the ones I do.
I have bolded the phobias that don’t trigger my spell check, a sign they might be more accepted words.
bees - apiphobia, melissophobia. Already I wonder if fifty phobias is too few. Lots of bugs—or bugs in general—can trigger fears. I handle most pretty well, but there was that time I found a palmetto bug in my bed in Savannah. (That’d be katsaridaphobia.) With bees, I tend to remember my dad’s old “Leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone” maxim, but if you’re at all nervous around them, don’t watch the X-Files episode “Zero Sum.”
cats - ailurophobia, galeophobia, gatophobia, felinophobia. With
four(sigh) three of our own, we’ve got no risk of this one, though one of our cats, to Janice’s chagrin, does have an irrational fear of women (covered later in the list).closed spaces - claustrophobia. This one has no exact matches, but the fear of being trapped in something—cleithrophobia—is (forgive me) uncomfortably close.
crowds - demophobia, ochlophobia. I might have a mild form of this. Part of my issue is that I can’t pick out voices in crowds as easily as others seem to, so my social utility is limited in them. Some people consider this fear a division of agoraphobia (fear of open spaces, cited later).
darkness - noctiphobia, achluophobia, nyctophobia, scotophobia. Some of these are more “fear of night.”
death - necrophobia, thanatophobia. You can switch philia for phobia for most of these words to get an unusual affinity—Isaac Asimov said he had claustrophilia, a liking for enclosed spaces. But, uh, necrophilia is an “unusual affinity” that’s a bit more specific.
disease - pathophobia, nosophobia. More on this when we get to “germs.” You’d think those two fears would be the same fear, but fear isn’t always rational about cause and effect.
dogs - cynophobia, canine phobia. No worries there—J and I both love dogs, though her mild allergy means I have to give pets to the pets of tolerant strangers.
drinking - dipsophobia, potophobia. Might’ve had this when I was younger. Mostly I prided myself on being resistant to peer pressure, so I had no desire to go drinking with the cool kids—and when I realized how much money I was saving by not buying wine or beer, that kept me mostly temperate to the present. It does make me and my wife outliers among my immediate family, though.
Speaking of whom, I’ll be heading down to see Mom, Dad, and my brother this weekend—his birthday’s close to mine, so we’ll be having a joint celebration of sorts. I’ll probably post something light for the next couple of days before finishing up this series on Monday and Tuesday. Until then…