Ben Nikpour : Week 4- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: The Fear of Long Words

    Everyone is afraid of something. Some people are afraid of spiders, some are afraid of heights, the dark, small spaces, clowns, and the list goes on and on. Each of these fears has its scientific name. For example, arachnophobia is a fear of spiders. Now, for the most part, all of these fears are rational. It is normal to be afraid of something, and most of these fears are common among millions of people. On the other hand, there are people with crazy fears that I bet you have never heard. To me, the craziest one of them all is the fear of long words. 

    At first glance, you may think that is somewhat strange, but it is not the craziest thing you have ever seen. But I urge you to think again when you read the scientific name: hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. There are many different ways to spell this crazy word, but I spelled it with 35 letters and 15 syllables. Look at the word again, and you may ask yourself the same question I did when I first saw it: why would the name for the fear of long words be one of the longest words in the English dictionary. I think about this question constantly. 

    I was first introduced to the strange word in fifth grade by my English teacher, Mrs. Mitchell. Mrs. Mitchell was one of my favorite teachers as she was fun, caring, and informative. One of our first lessons, and probably the one I remember the most, was about strange words. Obviously, hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia was one of the first words we discussed. My teacher had us memorize the word, and my friends and I would race to see who could pronounce it the fastest. 

    The way the word is pronounced is hip‧po‧po‧to‧mon‧stro‧ses‧qui‧pe‧dal‧i‧o‧pho‧bi‧a. The word can be broken down into parts to analyze the meaning. The first part of the word, “hippopotomonstro”, means something large like the meaning of hippopotamus. The next part of the word, “sesquipedalio” is similar to the Latin word “sesquipedalis” which means a foot and a half long. The last part, “phobia”, obviously means fear of something. Together these parts make up the word for a fear of long words. While hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is a strange word for the fear of long words, many people just use the word sesquipedalophobia as it means the same thing. 

    While I do not know exactly why they named the word hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia besides the breakdown of the meanings, I do know a little bit about how one develops such a fear. Like many fears, someone develops a fear of long words after suffering from an event recorded by the amygdala and hippocampus as something of danger involving the fear. So once you develop a fear of long words, if you are exposed to long words, you will suffer from anxiety or panic attacks as your brain registers the situation as dangerous.

    Have you heard of this word? What are you afraid of?