Phobology (3 of 3)
Verbophobics beware...
mirrors - spectrophobia, catoptrophobia, eisoptrophobia. Don’t quite fear these, but I tend to avoid looking in them much so I can maintain my young and hot self-image.
nakedness - nudophobia, gymnophobia. If anything, I should probably be more nervous about this one than I am, but see previous entry.
new things - neophobia, cenotophobia, kainophobia. I try to avoid this one! I’m listening to more 2020s music than oldies these days…
odors - olfactophobia, osmophobia, osphresiophobia. This is usually specific to particular smells, not every detectable smell imaginable. Related—and something that someone I know has experienced—is olfactory reference syndrome, the fear that their own body odor is too prominent.
open spaces - agoraphobia. Related is kenophobia, a fear of empty spaces, and aeroacrophobia, a fear of both open and high places. Maybe it’s aeroacrophobia that I’ve got—being high up doesn’t bother me unless I’m close enough to the edge to fall.
pain - algophobia, odynophobia, ponophobia
peanut butter - arachibutyrophobia, cibiphobia. The former is the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth, the latter is a more general fear of food. A PB&J is my favorite kind of sandwich, and yet I’ve sometimes bolted it down fast enough to be nervous about choking. I almost always have a big glass of milk on hand, just in case.
poisons - toxicophobia, iophobia, pharmacophobia. Iophobia is an interesting word, more vowel than consonant. Though it’s less accepted than the other two these days, it’s got etymological bona fides: ios (poison) is the same root that led to virus.
rabies - hydrophobophobia, cynophobia, lyssophobia. Cynophobia is also the fear of dogs, which is related, but lyssophobia is the least confusing word here. Hydrophobia can be fear of water but can also be a term for rabies itself.
sexual intercourse - coitophobia, cypridophobia, cypriphobia, venereophobia. Fear of venereal disease goes back well before the introduction of AIDS—though again, one shouldn’t confuse irrational fear with rational caution! But I think coitophobia is a more accurate term for those of us who fear sex for other reasons—religion, more general repression, or intimacy issues are just three likely culprits there.
small objects - microphobia, acarophobia, tapinophobia. Microphobia is sometimes “fear of germs” too, but the “fear of small objects” etymology seems clearer. Acarophobia is easily confused with the better-known acrophobia.
snakes - herpetophobia, ophidiophobia, lepidophobia, serpentphobia, snakephobia. I’ve handled too many snakes to feel like I really have this one, though I definitely don’t have Janice’s level of herpetophilia.
speaking - phonophobia, glossophobia, lalophobia. Overcoming this one was a big part of my life story—I grew up with a stutter and even now can speak in a somewhat hesitant style. But I placed second in my school’s ninth-grade speech competitions, and I got so many compliments afterward it changed my whole outlook.
spirits - demonophobia, pneumatophobia. An easy one to understand, at least.
stars - astrophobia, siderophobia. This one can be misrepresented: most people who have it aren’t going to freeze up if they see the American flag or the sun. It’s more the unforgiving vastness and emptiness of space that gets to them—something I played with in Traveler.
strangers - xenophobia, heterophobia. Of course, these words both have common other meanings—xenophobia is fear and/or hate of the unknown, and heterophobia is the fear and/or hate of the straights.
technology - technophobia, cyberphobia. Tech is evolving so fast it’s hard to say what’s rational here and what isn’t.
thieves - kleptophobia, harpaxophobia. I knew someone with this. She’d construct these paranoid fantasies—which she eventually treated like memories—of people invading her home and taking her stuff (even though she didn’t own much of market value, and the things that were valuable were still there). I did my best to help, but I was worried I might end up on her suspect list eventually—and for that and several other reasons, I had to withdraw.
thirteen - triskaidekaphobia. Related is paraskavedekatriaphobia, the fear of Friday the thirteenth, and arithmophobia, the fear of math and/or numbers.
water - aquaphobia, hydrophobia. Hydrophobia is also a term for rabies. I had a friend who I playfully sprayed with a hose when we were kids, not realizing he had the fear. I felt so guilty about it that he ended up comforting me, telling me it was kind of refreshing. Great guy.
wine - oenophobia, hygrophobia. As distinct from a “fear of drinking.” My family has this—on Opposite World.
women - feminophobia, gynephobia. A couple of the cats I’ve had have been nervous or avoidant of women, probably due to some traumatic origin story.
words - verbophobia, logophobia. This is obviously one of the fears most foreign to my own experience, though there are times when even I need to find some refuge in nonverbal silence. This fear can also be of more specific “trigger” words and not just words in general.
work - ergophobia, ergasiophobia, ponophobia. I’ve never been afraid to work, exactly, though I admit to worrying about losing my soul in a cubicle as portrayed in workplace comedies like Office Space and early Dilbert.
worms - vermiphobia, helminthophobia, acarophobia, scoleciphobia. I think the creepiness of worms varies a lot depending on where you find them.
Tomorrow—a micross!