The Duchess has a bun in the oven

After yesterday’s official announcement from St James’s Palace that the Duchess of Cambridge is carrying a future British monarch in her belly (and this is the first time in British history that one can say that about a right royal pregnancy), the news is spreading fast and furiously. Which words and expressions are the chattering and other classes using to describe our Kate’s ‘delicate’ condition?

She’s:

“knocked up”:  The OED traces the American slang expression to 1813. It cites an 1836 reference to slave women who are “knocked down by the auctioneer and knocked up by the purchaser.” The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests it derives from the slang word knock, meaning “to copulate with” (1598; cf. slang knocking-shop “brothel” 1860)

“has a bun in the oven”: an expression that appears to date back to the early- or mid-20th century. Literary references go back to the 1950s. (Phrasefinder.com cites Nicholas Monsarrat’s Cruel Sea, 1951: “‘I bet you left a bun in the oven, both of you,’ said Bennett thickly… Lockhart explained … the reference to pregnancy.)

“in the club”, “in the pudding club”: pudding is an old slang word, probably dating back to the 18th century, for penis; by 1890, Barrère & Leland in their Dictionary of Slang defined the term “pudding club”:”A woman in the family way is said to be in the pudding club.”

“up the duff”: see above; dough is another word for pudding, and duff is an alternative form and pronunciation of dough

“she’s wearing the bustle wrong” (old Western slang)

“Keith Cheggars” (Cockney rhyming slang: Cheggars = preggars)

“up the pole” or “up the stick”: the most famous use of this phrase (“up the pole”) is James Joyce in his Ulysses of 1918:”That red Carlisle girl? Is she up the pole? Better ask Seymour that.” All early usages of “up the pole” in print (meaning pregnant) come from Dublin writers, so it’s probably an Irish expression

“tin roof rusted”: after condom failure from puncture (used in the song Love Shack by the B-52s, but its origin is unclear)

“up the spout”: British slang from the early 19th century meaning ruined, failed or lost; probably refers to pawnbrokers and their means of storing and retrieving items for pawning through a chute or early dumbwaiter: “spouting” meant pawning, and if an item was pawned, it was said to be “up the spout”

“sprogged up” (British slang; sprog is British slang for kid or baby)

“she killed the rabbit”, “the rabbit died“: Myth has it that an old and primitive form of pregnancy test involved injecting a rabbit with a woman’s urine, with the rabbit’s death indicating a positive (ie. pregnant) result. It is true that rabbits were injected with women’s urine to test for pregnancy, but not that the rabbit’s death in itself was an indicator; in the 1920s scientists discovered that if the injected urine contained HCG (a hormone present in pregnant women), the rabbit would display ovarian changes and it would therefore be killed to have its ovaries examined.

“on stork watch”

“in a fix”

“with child”

“expecting”

“in a/the family way”

“in the motherly way”

“eating for two”

“preggers”, “preggo”, “prego”

“caught short” or “caught out”

Can you think of any other words or expressions that I’ve missed? Please feel free to add them to the comments section below.

A random story about a random word

A story on yesterday’s All Things Considered, from NPR.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/30/166240531/thats-so-random-the-evolution-of-an-odd-word

That’s So Random: The Evolution Of An Odd Word

by Neda Ulaby

The use of the word random as slang found its way into Amy Heckerling's 1995 hit film, Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone.

Paramount/The Kobal CollectionThe use of the word random as slang found its way into Amy Heckerling’s 1995 hit film, Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone.
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November 30, 2012

Random is a fighting word for young Spencer Thompson. The comedian posted a video to a Facebook page entitled I Hate When People Misuse the Word Random.

“The word random is the most misused word of our generation — by far,” he proclaims to a tittering audience of 20-somethings. “Like, girls will say, ‘Oh, God, I met this random on the way home.’ First of all, it’s not a noun.”

Or, Thompson continues, warming up, [they’ll say,] ” ‘Oh, my God, we went to the most random party!’ What? No! It was people at a house who decided to have a party, like, in your friend group.”

But these uses of the word are not incorrect, according to Jesse Sheidlower. He’s the elegant, purple-haired editor at large for the Oxford English Dictionary, which includes several definitions of the word random.

“It’s described as a colloquial term meaning peculiar, strange, nonsensical, unpredictable or inexplicable; unexpected,” he explains, before adding that random started as a noun in the 14th century, meaning “impetuosity, great speed, force or violence in riding, running, striking, et cetera, chiefly in the phrase ‘with great random.’ ”

Well, there’s a phrase that deserves resurrection. Sheidlower says that in the 17th century, random started to mean “lacking a definite purpose.”

“The specifically mathematical sense we have only from the late 19th century,” he observes. “But that’s with a highly technical definition — ‘governed by or involving equal chances for each of the actual or hypothetical members of a population; also, produced or obtained by such a process and therefore unpredictable in detail.’ ”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, nerds seized on random in the 1960s as slang. One early example dates from 1971, in a jokey article in the MIT student newspaper calling students “randomized tools.” Random as slang showed up in the Hacker’s Dictionary, then went mainstream.

“It was in the movie Clueless in 1995, for example,” Sheidlower points out. And he points out that Random House was established in 1925 specifically to publish books “at random,” in the words of founder Bennett Cerf.

No discussion of random could be complete without a reminder that randomness is vital to life as we know it. That’s according to Charlie McDonnell, the enthusiastic young Brit behind the Web series Fun Science.

The message: Life, like language, evolves.

“Every now and then — at random — you end up with something awesome,” he burbles. “And this could be anything — like longer feathers, sharper teeth, bigger muscles, a giant brain, anything that can help life survive. And that is why I think randomness is so cool, because it is what gives awesome things the chance to happen.”

How’s that for a random way to end the week?

A flock of nouns of multitude

The answer to my previous post, “A singular quiz”, is that they’re all collective nouns, or nouns of multitude, and specifically terms of venery.

We’re familiar with the phrases “a flock of sheep” and “a pride of lions”, and similar collective nouns specific to certain groups or types of people, such as a “company of actors”, a “troupe of dancers”, a “class of students”, a “platoon of soldiers”, an “orchestra of musicians”, and even a “bevy of beauties”. The terms of venery — such words that refer to animals — can be especially poetic and descriptive, and below is Wikipedia’s explanation for their fascinating collective history and etymology (along with a list of my personal and most poetic favorites, which is by no means exhaustive). Also below is a list of my favorite flavory collective nouns used to describe certain professions or subsets of society, two of which need to be singled out for special attention: a “conjunction of grammarians” and a “shrivel of critics”. Whoever dreamed up those particular terms of venery must be the very epitome of style and wit. As a matter of fact, we do know the author of at least one of them, as explained in the next paragraph. It’s noted in Wiki’s explanation that these terms, even when they were first coined, never really had any practical application: they were “intended as a mark of erudition of the gentlemen able to use them correctly rather than for practical communication.” How lucky for all writers and poets (and even for us readers) that they persist in our lexicon today — some of them surprisingly so. The fact that a “gaggle” is still used to describe not just a flock of geese but also a collection of women (usually of the giggling or talkative kind) is interesting in these days of post-feminism and political correctness; this term was one of the many deliberately humorous words listed in the Book of Saint Albans, published in 1486.

James Lipton, best known to us as the creator and host of the American TV show Inside the Actors Studio, is — among many other things — a great lover of words. (Indeed, one of his favorite moments of his show — and definitely one of mine — is when he asks his actor subjects for mostly single-word answers to his questionnaire: favorite curse word? favorite and least favorite sounds? etc.) Lipton has a special interest in collective nouns, and he has published a definitive, best-selling book on the subject: An Exaltation of Larks (1968). Lipton has even invented some of his own nouns of multitude, including a “score of bachelors”, an “unction of undertakers”, a “shrivel of critics” (it had to come from an actor or some kind of performing artist), and a “queue of actors”.

Let’s not bore ourselves here (except to single out the lovely expression “a singular of boars”) with the questions and complexities of which verb forms (singular or plural) should be used with these collective nouns. Suffice to say the Brits and the Yanks diverge in their usage: in British English, collective nouns can take either singular or plural verb forms, depending on the context and something called the “implied metonymic shift”. It is perfectly acceptable in England to say “the class have finished their homework” (especially if all the students in the class had the same homework). However, in American English, collective nouns take singular verb forms: “the class has finished its homework”. This matter was discussed in an earlier Glossophilia blog post: https://glossophilia.org/?p=156

Some of my favorite nouns of assembly (for professions or groups of people):

– A tabernacle of bakers
– A shuffle of bureaucrats
– A hastiness of cooks
– A shrivel of critics
– A decanter of deans
– An obstruction of dons
– A galaxy of governesses
– A conjunction of grammarians
– A melody of harpists
– An observance of hermits
– A neverthriving of jugglers
– A superfluity of nuns
– A scolding of seamstresses
– A disguising of tailors
– A prudence of vicars
– An ambush of widows

Some of my favorite terms of venery:

– A shrewdness of apes
– A pace of asses
– A cete of badgers
– A sloth or sleuth of bears
– A singular of boars
– An obstinacy of buffalo
– A clowder or pounce of cats
– An intrusion of cockroaches
– A rag of colts
– A murder of crows
– A cowardice of curs
– A pitying of doves
– A business of ferrets
– A charm of finches
– A leash or skulk of fox
– A tower of giraffes
– An implausibility of gnus
– A trip of goats
– A down or husk of hares
– A bloat of hippopotamuses
– A cry or mute of hounds
– A cackle of hyenas
– An intrigue of kittens
– A deceit of lapwings
– An exaltation of larks
– A leap of leopards
– A pride of lions
– A labor of moles
– A span or barren of mules
– A richness of martens
– A romp of otters
– A parliament of owls
– An aurora of polar bears
– A prickle of porcupines
– An unkindness of ravens
– A crash of rhinoceroses
– A shiver of sharks
– A scurry of squirrels
– An affliction of starlings
– A streak of tigers
– A knot of toads
– A gam of whales
– A business of weasels

 

Wikipedia on the history of nouns of assembly:

The tradition of using “terms of venery” or “nouns of assembly” — collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals — stems from an English hunting tradition of the late Middle Ages. The fashion of a consciously developed hunting language came to England from France. It is marked by an extensive proliferation of specialist vocabulary, applying different names to the same feature in different animals. These elements can be shown to have already been part of French and English hunting terminology by the beginning of the 14th century. In the course of the 14th century, it became a courtly fashion to extend the vocabulary, and by the 15th century, this tendency had reached exaggerated proportions. The Venerie of Twiti (early 14th century) distinguished three types of droppings of animals, and three different terms for herds of animals. Gaston Phoebus (14th c.) had five terms for droppings of animals, which were extended to seven in the Master of the Game (early 15th century). The focus on collective terms for groups of animals emerges in the later 15th century. Thus, a list of collective nouns in Egerton MS 1995, dated to ca. 1452 under the heading of termis of venery &c. extends to 70 items, and the list in the Book of Saint Albans (1486) runs to 165 items, many of which, even though introduced by the compaynys of beestys and fowlys, do not relate to venery but to human groups and professions and are clearly humorous. (a Doctryne of doctoris, a Sentence of Juges, a Fightyng of beggers, an uncredibilite of Cocoldis, a Melody of harpers, a Gagle of women, a Disworship of Scottis etc.)

The Book of Saint Albans became very popular during the 16th century and was reprinted frequently. Gervase Markham edited and commented on the list in his The Gentleman’s Academic in 1595. The book’s popularity had the effect of perpetuating many of these terms as part of the Standard English lexicon, even though they have long ceased to have any practical application. Even in their original context of medieval venery, the terms were of the nature of kennings, intended as a mark of erudition of the gentlemen able to use them correctly rather than for practical communication.The popularity of these terms in the early modern and modern period has resulted in the addition of numerous light-hearted, humorous or “facetious” collective nouns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun

Portmanteaux, neologisms, and malapropisms

Remember Bennifer? (And wonder why?)

Well, Bennifer — describing the then union between singer-actress Jennifer Lopez and actor Ben Affleck, and in effect creating a ‘composite identity’ of the two lovebirds — was one of the early examples of celebrity-name-meshing that’s now enjoying such a craze in Hollywood and beyond. (Other notable examples are Tomkat, Brangelina, and Billary. And this name-meshing can actually be traced back at least to the ’70s: there’s a scene in All the President’s Men in which the movie’s reporter-protagonists Woodward and Bernstein are referred to as “Woodstein”.)

Bennifer is a twist on the portmanteau: a linguistic blending of two or more words and their meanings into one new word with a composite definition. A good example of a portmanteau is brunch, which combines not just morphemes but also the meanings of its root words breakfast and lunch: ie. it describes a mid- to late-morning repast that combines in its menu typical fare of those respective meals. I have always thought that portmanteau was just a posh name for a suitcase (or a musical term — I guess that’s portamento), but my daughter’s boyfriend told me about its second and much more interesting definition during a discussion about acronyms (see previous post).

A marriage of French words meaning “carry” (porte) and “coat” (manteau), portmanteau had as its original and more  prosaic definition a large traveling bag or suitcase, usually made of leather,  that opens into two equal sections. The word was adopted by Lewis Carroll in the late 19th century to describe a new type of composite word that he invented especially for his poem Jabberwocky: slithy (combining “lithe and slimy”) and mimsy (“flimsy and miserable”) are two such words from his famous nonsense rhyme. Wikipedia describes how Carroll not only coined the new meaning for portmanteau but also explained his thinking in his most famous book and in another of his poems: “[In Through the Looking Glass] Humpty Dumpty explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice, ‘You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.’ … In his introduction to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll uses “portmanteau” when discussing lexical selection: ‘Humpty Dumpty’s theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words “fuming” and “furious”. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first … if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say “frumious”.”

Examples of portmanteaus in common modern usage are smog (smoke + fog), infomercial (information + commercial), advertorial (advertisement + editorial), motel (motor + hotel), and simulcast (simultaneous + broadcast). Pakistan, as well as being an Urdu word, combines the names of its constituent regions: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan. When the African countries Tanganyika and Zanzibar united in 1964, the resulting new republic was named Tanzania. Wikipedia is a portmanteau, melding the words “wiki” and “encyclopedia”.

Many portmanteaus (or portmanteaux, if we want to feel swanky and French) start off as neologisms; a neologism (from the Greek néo-, meaning “new”, and lógos, meaning “speech” or “word”) is a word or phrase that is (or has a new meaning) new to common and accepted usage. An example of a neologism/portmanteau is metrosexual (which combines “metropolitan” and “heterosexual”), an adjective cooked up in the 90s to refer to straight men who display stereotypically homosexual traits such as fashion-consciousness and the investment of time and energy in careful grooming and clothes-shopping. Another example of a relatively recent neologism — in which an old word has a new use — is “friend” used as a verb, as in “to friend someone on Facebook”.

A bit of light word association takes us via the neologism “Bushism” (describing an utterance of our linguistically accident-prone former president George W. Bush) to another type of word or expression founded on the use — or in this case the often unintentional misuse or mixing up — of other words and phrases: the malapropism. Probably the most famous Bushism-malapropism, which also seemed to be a portmanteau but will hopefully never be a neologism, is misunderestimate. This non-word, presumably meaning (if it were a real word) to severely underestimate, and an apparent concoction of misunderstand and underestimate, was used on no less than three occasions by President Bush…

And finally, please enjoy this cartoon published on the webcomic xkcd.com. Here, comedian and xkcd founder Randall Munroe illustrates in a brilliant parody — of linguists, Wikipedia, and anyone who writes or reads grammar blogs — how the online encyclopedia might present and define his own invented stunt word* malamanteau.

* a deliberately attention-seeking neologism

http://xkcd.com/739/

 

 

 

What’s in an A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.?

Which of the following words is an acronym? NATO, jpeg, Nabisco, radar, SAT, OMG, WTF? Most would agree that they’re all acronyms, with the possible exception of the latter two, but there are purists who would argue that only NATO fits the true definition.

There’s a whole lot of confusion out there about what actually constitutes an acronym, and there’s no elegant or eloquent way to define or explain what it is in its various incarnations (partly because of the very ambiguity of the word itself). According to Wikipedia, it’s “the name for a word from the first letters of each word in a series of words”; as Merriam-Webster explains it, acronym is “a word formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term”. Hmmm … We’ve hardly begun, and already we’re sensing some disagreement: is it just the first letter of each word, as explained by Wikipedia, or can it be made up of more than one letter from each constituent word, as Merriam-Webster suggests? The OED goes further by qualifying that it is a word “usually pronounced as such, formed from the initial letters of other words.” Indeed, some definitions prescribe that an acronym must be pronounceable as a word (eg. NATO) in order for it to qualify as such. The most common acronyms in use today are not pronounceable/pronounced as words but are simply strings of initials (FBI, SAT, BBC, CIA, PR etc.); this form of initial-letter abbreviation is also referred to as an initialism or an alphebiticism — especially by those unwilling to confer acronym status on it.

Deriving from the Greek acro-, acron (meaning extreme, tip or end) and onoma (name), the word acronym is relatively young. It was first coined in the 20th century, and many early examples were shorthand names for organizations created during or in the aftermath of the two world wars. Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) and Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service) were names for WWI units; as well as radar (radio detection and ranging), awol (absent without leave), and scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) coming out of the Second World War, a whole series of postal acronyms were developed by active servicemen conveying romantic messages to their sweethearts back home. SWALK (“sealed with a loving kiss”) is just one example of such a word scribbled on the back of many an envelope. I’m reading Erik Larson’s fabulous book about Germany in the early 1930s, In the Garden of Beasts, in which he reminds us of how the name Gestapo — the secret police of Hitler’s Nazi regime — came to be: from the first letters of its full German name “Geheime Staatspolizei”. So it wasn’t just the Americans looking to abbreviate the names of their organizations. NATO, NASA, and UNESCO are widely used true acronyms whose full multi-word original names are now almost forgotten. The machine that generates random numbers for the UK’s Premium Bond (or national lottery) drawing is called ERNIE, after the electronic random number indicator equipment.

There are no less than 84 definitions for the initialism “C.O.D.”, which is most commonly understood to mean cash on delivery. If it were a pure acronym it would be pronounced “cod”, and this brings us to another factor in the “what makes an acronym” argument: whether said abbreviation is spoken or written, and in what context. Especially now in our ADD world of SMSs, IMs, AIMs, texts, and tweets, where brevity is king, acronyms or initialisms are invading the language. BRB (be right back), LOL (laugh out loud), BTW (by the way), OMG, and WTF are just a few of the ubiquitous acronyms that populate the vast new vocabulary of internet slang. But these initialisms are rarely spoken aloud, since the number of syllables used to pronounce the full phrase is usually no greater than that of the acronym itself (and in the case of WTF, the initialism is actually longer and harder to pronounce than the words it represents), and therefore are used predominantly for keystroke- and character-saving purposes. So this particular form of acronym tends to be reserved for the pen or the keyboard — and many would argue that this confined usage and function strips the abbreviation of its acronym status. However, it’s worth noting that these written abbreviations existed long before keyboards became our predominant tool for writing: FYI (for your information), IMO (in my opinion) and P.S. (postscript) have been in the written vernacular for a long time, and some Latin acronyms even pre-date modern English: a.m. is from the Latin ante meridiem (“before noon”), and p.m. is post meridiem; A.D. (from the Latin Anno Domini, “in the year of our Lord”) was soon complemented by the English-sourced B.C. (“before Christ”).

OK is used and understood all over the world with its meaning of approval, assent, acceptance, agreement or acknowledgement. No-one really knows where OK originates, but the many theories of its etymology — a number of which have been dismissed as false — are acronym-based. Here are a few of them, all dating from the 19th century:

  • initials of “oll korrect”, coined  during a Boston fad for comical misspellings and abbreviations
  • initials of “Old Kinderhook”, the nickname for Martin Van Buren, used as a slogan in the 1840 presidential election
  • (German, c. 1900) initials of ohne Korrektur (“without correction”)
  • (Greek) initials of Ola Kala ( Ὅλα Καλά, “everything is fine”), used by teachers marking students’ work
  • initials of “Open Key”: a global telegraph signal meaning “ready to transmit”
  • (Latin) initials of Omnis Korrecta (“all correct”), used by early schoolmasters marking examination papersoch aye (“ah, yes”) used by Scottish immigrants

 

You say dressing, I say stuffing …

 

“Know your stuff, know what you are stuffing, then stuff it elegantly.“ — Lola May

 

Back in the middle ages in England, stuffing was known as farce, from the French farcir (derived from the Latin farcire), meaning “to stuff”. Farce also referred then to a brief and lighthearted dramatic interlude or play ‘stuffed’ for light relief between more serious religious presentations in order to hold an audience’s attention, and that meaning survives in a more comedic version today. As well as farce, forcemeat was another term used for the spiced meat mixture that was so called because of the way it was forced into the cavity of the bird for cooking.

Stuffing first began to be used in Tudor England during the reign of Henry VIII (the word was first seen in print in 1538). However, a few hundred years on, it was deemed too vulgar and descriptive a word for those in elegant Victorian high society, who began referring to stuffing as dressing — and this was the word that traveled across the Atlantic and is now used widely in North America, although it was subsequently dropped from the vernacular in England where its more hearty antecedent was preferred.

When the American company Stove Top introduced its own brand of dressing in a box in 1972 (after Ruth Siems, a home economist, invented the instant version of the product) and called it “stuffing”, the traditional English name found its way into Thanksgiving turkeys and households around the United States. Stuffing tends to be heard more in the South and East, while dressing is the accompaniment of choice in the Midwest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Glossophobia

Being phobic myself (I’m an aviophobe, and yes, I’m a glossophobe), I have no wish to make light or fun of anyone’s fears or anxieties, however unlikely or peculiar they might be. Freud would have had a field-day with this very comprehensive list of phobias, which was painstakingly compiled over many years by Fredd of phobialist.com. (Fredd clearly doesn’t suffer from phobophobia, thank goodness.) According to phobialist.com, these are all known phobias documented in reference works, so none of them is a joke – especially not to the poor souls (or likely soul, singular, in a few cases) who are afflicted.

Having expressed my sympathies and empathy, and completely without prejudice or suspicion, I do want to point out at least three phobias in the list that strike me as very Monty Python-esque: arachibutyrophobia (a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one’s mouth),  Bolshephobia (fear of Bolsheviks), and consecotaleophobia (fear of chopsticks). The etymology of the second phobia name is obvious, and the first one clearly derives from the Greek/Latin aracho-, arachi-, arachid-, araki–  — meaning peanut or legume — combined with butyro from the French butyrique, in turn from the Latin butyrum meaning butter. But I’m drawing a blank trying to track down the origins of the chopstick phobia: consecotale doesn’t have a very Chinese ring to it …

Phobia itself comes from the Greek word phobos, meaning “fear, panic fear, terror”. Phobos originally had implications of “flight”, based on the ancient Greek word φόβος, whose second definition was the act of fleeing, flight or retreat. (The Scriptural word phebomai also means to be put to flight,  and gives phobos its Biblical meaning: to withdraw, separate from, flee, remove oneself and hence to avoid because of dread or fright.) So phobia appropriately retains the element of avoidance as well as fear inherent in its root words.

If I could choose a phobia, I certainly wouldn’t opt for one of the more esoteric and poetic fears whose mere existence really illuminate the human mind in all its complexity and subtlety (and this is perhaps where Oliver Sacks would weigh in with some interesting observations).  How cruel would life be if you suffered from allodoxaphobia (a fear of opinions), chronophopia (fear of time), eleutherophobia (fear of freedom), epistemophobia (fear of knowledge), ideophobia (fear of ideas), logophobia (fear of words), philosophobia (fear of philosophy), phronemophobia (fear of thinking), or symmetrophobia (fear of symmetry)?

And pity the poor patient who has been diagnosed with hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (a fear of long words): try using that as an excuse for not doing your homework …

http://phobialist.com/

 

A-

Ablutophobia- Fear of washing or bathing.
Acarophobia- Fear of itching or of the insects that cause itching.
Acerophobia- Fear of sourness.
Achluophobia- Fear of darkness.
Acousticophobia- Fear of noise.
Acrophobia- Fear of heights.
Aerophobia- Fear of drafts, air swallowing, or airbourne noxious substances.
Aeroacrophobia- Fear of open high places.
Aeronausiphobia- Fear of vomiting secondary to airsickness.
Agateophobia- Fear of insanity.
Agliophobia- Fear of pain.
Agoraphobia- Fear of open spaces or of being in crowded, public places like markets. Fear of leaving a safe place.
Agraphobia- Fear of sexual abuse.
Agrizoophobia- Fear of wild animals.
Agyrophobia- Fear of streets or crossing the street.
Aichmophobia- Fear of needles or pointed objects.
Ailurophobia- Fear of cats.
Albuminurophobia- Fear of kidney disease.
Alektorophobia- Fear of chickens.
Algophobia- Fear of pain.
Alliumphobia- Fear of garlic.
Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions.
Altophobia- Fear of heights.
Amathophobia- Fear of dust.
Amaxophobia- Fear of riding in a car.
Ambulophobia- Fear of walking.
Amnesiphobia- Fear of amnesia.
Amychophobia- Fear of scratches or being scratched.
Anablephobia- Fear of looking up.
Ancraophobia- Fear of wind. (Anemophobia)
Androphobia- Fear of men.
Anemophobia- Fear of air drafts or wind.(Ancraophobia)
Anginophobia- Fear of angina, choking or narrowness.
Anglophobia- Fear of England or English culture, etc.
Angrophobia – Fear of anger or of becoming angry.
Ankylophobia- Fear of immobility of a joint.
Anthrophobia or Anthophobia- Fear of flowers.
Anthropophobia- Fear of people or society.
Antlophobia- Fear of floods.
Anuptaphobia- Fear of staying single.
Apeirophobia- Fear of infinity.
Aphenphosmphobia- Fear of being touched. (Haphephobia)
Apiphobia- Fear of bees.
Apotemnophobia- Fear of persons with amputations.
Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
Arachnephobia or Arachnophobia- Fear of spiders.
Arithmophobia- Fear of numbers.
Arrhenphobia- Fear of men.
Arsonphobia- Fear of fire.
Asthenophobia- Fear of fainting or weakness.
Astraphobia or Astrapophobia- Fear of thunder and lightning.(Ceraunophobia, Keraunophobia)
Astrophobia- Fear of stars or celestial space.
Asymmetriphobia- Fear of asymmetrical things.
Ataxiophobia- Fear of ataxia. (muscular incoordination)
Ataxophobia- Fear of disorder or untidiness.
Atelophobia- Fear of imperfection.
Atephobia- Fear of ruin or ruins.
Athazagoraphobia- Fear of being forgotton or ignored or forgetting.
Atomosophobia- Fear of atomic explosions.
Atychiphobia- Fear of failure.
Aulophobia- Fear of flutes.
Aurophobia- Fear of gold.
Auroraphobia- Fear of Northern lights.
Autodysomophobia- Fear of one that has a vile odor.
Automatonophobia- Fear of ventriloquist’s dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues – anything that falsly represents a sentient being.
Automysophobia- Fear of being dirty.
Autophobia- Fear of being alone or of oneself.
Aviophobia or Aviatophobia- Fear of flying.

 

B

Bacillophobia- Fear of microbes.
Bacteriophobia- Fear of bacteria.
Ballistophobia- Fear of missiles or bullets.
Bolshephobia- Fear of Bolsheviks.
Barophobia- Fear of gravity.
Basophobia or Basiphobia- Inability to stand. Fear of walking or falling.
Bathmophobia- Fear of stairs or steep slopes.
Bathophobia- Fear of depth.
Batophobia- Fear of heights or being close to high buildings.
Batrachophobia- Fear of amphibians, such as frogs, newts, salamanders, etc.
Belonephobia- Fear of pins and needles. (Aichmophobia)
Bibliophobia- Fear of books.
Blennophobia- Fear of slime.
Bogyphobia- Fear of bogeys or the bogeyman.
Botanophobia- Fear of plants.
Bromidrosiphobia or Bromidrophobia- Fear of body smells.
Brontophobia- Fear of thunder and lightning.
Bufonophobia- Fear of toads.

 

C-

Cacophobia- Fear of ugliness.
Cainophobia or Cainotophobia- Fear of newness, novelty.
Caligynephobia- Fear of beautiful women.
Cancerophobia or Carcinophobia- Fear of cancer.
Cardiophobia- Fear of the heart.
Carnophobia- Fear of meat.
Catagelophobia- Fear of being ridiculed.
Catapedaphobia- Fear of jumping from high and low places.
Cathisophobia- Fear of sitting.
Catoptrophobia- Fear of mirrors.
Cenophobia or Centophobia- Fear of new things or ideas.
Ceraunophobia or Keraunophobia- Fear of thunder and lightning.(Astraphobia, Astrapophobia)
Chaetophobia- Fear of hair.
Cheimaphobia or Cheimatophobia- Fear of cold.(Frigophobia, Psychophobia)
Chemophobia- Fear of chemicals or working with chemicals.
Cherophobia- Fear of gaiety.
Chionophobia- Fear of snow.
Chiraptophobia- Fear of being touched.
Chirophobia- Fear of hands.
Chiroptophobia- Fear of bats.
Cholerophobia- Fear of anger or the fear of cholera.
Chorophobia- Fear of dancing.
Chrometophobia or Chrematophobia- Fear of money.
Chromophobia or Chromatophobia- Fear of colors.
Chronophobia- Fear of time.
Chronomentrophobia- Fear of clocks.
Cibophobia- Fear of food.(Sitophobia, Sitiophobia)
Claustrophobia- Fear of confined spaces.
Cleithrophobia or Cleisiophobia- Fear of being locked in an enclosed place.
Cleptophobia- Fear of stealing.
Climacophobia- Fear of stairs, climbing, or of falling downstairs.
Clinophobia- Fear of going to bed.
Clithrophobia or Cleithrophobia- Fear of being enclosed.
Cnidophobia- Fear of stings.
Cometophobia- Fear of comets.
Coimetrophobia- Fear of cemeteries.
Coitophobia- Fear of coitus.
Contreltophobia- Fear of sexual abuse.
Coprastasophobia- Fear of constipation.
Coprophobia- Fear of feces.
Consecotaleophobia- Fear of chopsticks.
Coulrophobia- Fear of clowns.
Counterphobia- The preference by a phobic for fearful situations.
Cremnophobia- Fear of precipices.
Cryophobia- Fear of extreme cold, ice or frost.
Crystallophobia- Fear of crystals or glass.
Cyberphobia- Fear of computers or working on a computer.
Cyclophobia- Fear of bicycles.
Cymophobia or Kymophobia- Fear of waves or wave like motions.
Cynophobia- Fear of dogs or rabies.
Cypridophobia or Cypriphobia or Cyprianophobia or Cyprinophobia – Fear of prostitutes or venereal disease.

 

D-

Decidophobia- Fear of making decisions.
Defecaloesiophobia- Fear of painful bowels movements.
Deipnophobia- Fear of dining or dinner conversations.
Dementophobia- Fear of insanity.
Demonophobia or Daemonophobia- Fear of demons.
Demophobia- Fear of crowds. (Agoraphobia)
Dendrophobia- Fear of trees.
Dentophobia- Fear of dentists.
Dermatophobia- Fear of skin lesions.
Dermatosiophobia or Dermatophobia or Dermatopathophobia- Fear of skin disease.
Dextrophobia- Fear of objects at the right side of the body.
Diabetophobia- Fear of diabetes.
Didaskaleinophobia- Fear of going to school.
Dikephobia- Fear of justice.
Dinophobia- Fear of dizziness or whirlpools.
Diplophobia- Fear of double vision.
Dipsophobia- Fear of drinking.
Dishabiliophobia- Fear of undressing in front of someone.
Disposophobia- Fear of throwing stuff out. Hoarding.
Domatophobia- Fear of houses or being in a house.(Eicophobia, Oikophobia)
Doraphobia- Fear of fur or skins of animals.
Doxophobia- Fear of expressing opinions or of receiving praise.
Dromophobia- Fear of crossing streets.
Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch.
Dysmorphophobia- Fear of deformity.
Dystychiphobia- Fear of accidents.

 

E-

Ecclesiophobia- Fear of church.
Ecophobia- Fear of home.
Eicophobia- Fear of home surroundings.(Domatophobia, Oikophobia)
Eisoptrophobia- Fear of mirrors or of seeing oneself in a mirror.
Electrophobia- Fear of electricity.
Eleutherophobia- Fear of freedom.
Elurophobia- Fear of cats. (Ailurophobia)
Emetophobia- Fear of vomiting.
Enetophobia- Fear of pins.
Enochlophobia- Fear of crowds.
Enosiophobia or Enissophobia- Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism.
Entomophobia- Fear of insects.
Eosophobia- Fear of dawn or daylight.
Ephebiphobia- Fear of teenagers.
Epistaxiophobia- Fear of nosebleeds.
Epistemophobia- Fear of knowledge.
Equinophobia- Fear of horses.
Eremophobia- Fear of being oneself or of lonliness.
Ereuthrophobia- Fear of blushing.
Ergasiophobia- 1) Fear of work or functioning. 2) Surgeon’s fear of operating.
Ergophobia- Fear of work.
Erotophobia- Fear of sexual love or sexual questions.
Euphobia- Fear of hearing good news.
Eurotophobia- Fear of female genitalia.
Erythrophobia or Erytophobia or Ereuthophobia- 1) Fear of redlights. 2) Blushing. 3) Red.

 

F-

Febriphobia or Fibriphobia or Fibriophobia- Fear of fever.
Felinophobia- Fear of cats. (Ailurophobia, Elurophobia, Galeophobia, Gatophobia)
Francophobia- Fear of France or French culture. (Gallophobia, Galiophobia)
Frigophobia- Fear of cold or cold things.(Cheimaphobia, Cheimatophobia, Psychrophobia)

 

G-

Galeophobia or Gatophobia- Fear of cats.
Gallophobia or Galiophobia- Fear France or French culture. (Francophobia)
Gamophobia- Fear of marriage.
Geliophobia- Fear of laughter.
Gelotophobia- Fear of being laughed at.
Geniophobia- Fear of chins.
Genophobia- Fear of sex.
Genuphobia- Fear of knees.
Gephyrophobia or Gephydrophobia or Gephysrophobia- Fear of crossing bridges.
Germanophobia- Fear of Germany or German culture.
Gerascophobia- Fear of growing old.
Gerontophobia- Fear of old people or of growing old.
Geumaphobia or Geumophobia- Fear of taste.
Glossophobia- Fear of speaking in public or of trying to speak.
Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge.
Graphophobia- Fear of writing or handwriting.
Gymnophobia- Fear of nudity.
Gynephobia or Gynophobia- Fear of women.

 

H-

Hadephobia- Fear of hell.
Hagiophobia- Fear of saints or holy things.
Hamartophobia- Fear of sinning.
Haphephobia or Haptephobia- Fear of being touched.
Harpaxophobia- Fear of being robbed.
Hedonophobia- Fear of feeling pleasure.
Heliophobia- Fear of the sun.
Hellenologophobia- Fear of Greek terms or complex scientific terminology.
Helminthophobia- Fear of being infested with worms.
Hemophobia or Hemaphobia or Hematophobia- Fear of blood.
Heresyphobia or Hereiophobia- Fear of challenges to official doctrine or of radical deviation.
Herpetophobia- Fear of reptiles or creepy, crawly things.
Heterophobia- Fear of the opposite sex. (Sexophobia)
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- Fear of the number 666.
Hierophobia- Fear of priests or sacred things.
Hippophobia- Fear of horses.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words.
Hobophobia- Fear of bums or beggars.
Hodophobia- Fear of road travel.
Hormephobia- Fear of shock.
Homichlophobia- Fear of fog.
Homilophobia- Fear of sermons.
Hominophobia- Fear of men.
Homophobia- Fear of sameness, monotony or of homosexuality or of becoming homosexual.
Hoplophobia- Fear of firearms.
Hydrargyophobia- Fear of mercurial medicines.
Hydrophobia- Fear of water or of rabies.
Hydrophobophobia- Fear of rabies.
Hyelophobia or Hyalophobia- Fear of glass.
Hygrophobia- Fear of liquids, dampness, or moisture.
Hylephobia- Fear of materialism or the fear of epilepsy.
Hylophobia- Fear of forests.
Hypengyophobia or Hypegiaphobia- Fear of responsibility.
Hypnophobia- Fear of sleep or of being hypnotized.
Hypsiphobia- Fear of height.

 

I-

Iatrophobia- Fear of going to the doctor or of doctors.
Ichthyophobia- Fear of fish.
Ideophobia- Fear of ideas.
Illyngophobia- Fear of vertigo or feeling dizzy when looking down.
Iophobia- Fear of poison.
Insectophobia – Fear of insects.
Isolophobia- Fear of solitude, being alone.
Isopterophobia- Fear of termites, insects that eat wood.
Ithyphallophobia- Fear of seeing, thinking about or having an erect penis.

J-

Japanophobia- Fear of Japanese.
Judeophobia- Fear of Jews.

K-

Kainolophobia or Kainophobia- Fear of anything new, novelty.
Kakorrhaphiophobia- Fear of failure or defeat.
Katagelophobia- Fear of ridicule.
Kathisophobia- Fear of sitting down.
Katsaridaphobia- Fear of cockroaches.
Kenophobia- Fear of voids or empty spaces.
Keraunophobia or Ceraunophobia- Fear of thunder and lightning.(Astraphobia, Astrapophobia)
Kinetophobia or Kinesophobia- Fear of movement or motion.
Kleptophobia- Fear of stealing.
Koinoniphobia- Fear of rooms.
Kolpophobia- Fear of genitals, particularly female.
Kopophobia- Fear of fatigue.
Koniophobia- Fear of dust. (Amathophobia)
Kosmikophobia- Fear of cosmic phenomenon.
Kymophobia- Fear of waves. (Cymophobia)
Kynophobia- Fear of rabies.
Kyphophobia- Fear of stooping.

 

L-

Lachanophobia- Fear of vegetables.
Laliophobia or Lalophobia- Fear of speaking.
Leprophobia or Lepraphobia- Fear of leprosy.
Leukophobia- Fear of the color white.
Levophobia- Fear of things to the left side of the body.
Ligyrophobia- Fear of loud noises.
Lilapsophobia- Fear of tornadoes and hurricanes.
Limnophobia- Fear of lakes.
Linonophobia- Fear of string.
Liticaphobia- Fear of lawsuits.
Lockiophobia- Fear of childbirth.
Logizomechanophobia- Fear of computers.
Logophobia- Fear of words.
Luiphobia- Fear of lues, syphillis.
Lutraphobia- Fear of otters.
Lygophobia- Fear of darkness.
Lyssophobia- Fear of rabies or of becoming mad.

M-

Macrophobia- Fear of long waits.
Mageirocophobia- Fear of cooking.
Maieusiophobia- Fear of childbirth.
Malaxophobia- Fear of love play. (Sarmassophobia)
Maniaphobia- Fear of insanity.
Mastigophobia- Fear of punishment.
Mechanophobia- Fear of machines.
Medomalacuphobia- Fear of losing an erection.
Medorthophobia- Fear of an erect penis.
Megalophobia- Fear of large things.
Melissophobia- Fear of bees.
Melanophobia- Fear of the color black.
Melophobia- Fear or hatred of music.
Meningitophobia- Fear of brain disease.
Menophobia- Fear of menstruation.
Merinthophobia- Fear of being bound or tied up.
Metallophobia- Fear of metal.
Metathesiophobia- Fear of changes.
Meteorophobia- Fear of meteors.
Methyphobia- Fear of alcohol.
Metrophobia- Fear or hatred of poetry.
Microbiophobia- Fear of microbes. (Bacillophobia)
Microphobia- Fear of small things.
Misophobia or Mysophobia- Fear of being contaminated with dirt or germs.
Mnemophobia- Fear of memories.
Molysmophobia or Molysomophobia- Fear of dirt or contamination.
Monophobia- Fear of solitude or being alone.
Monopathophobia- Fear of definite disease.
Motorphobia- Fear of automobiles.
Mottephobia- Fear of moths.
Musophobia or Muriphobia- Fear of mice.
Mycophobia- Fear or aversion to mushrooms.
Mycrophobia- Fear of small things.
Myctophobia- Fear of darkness.
Myrmecophobia- Fear of ants.
Mythophobia- Fear of myths or stories or false statements.
Myxophobia- Fear of slime. (Blennophobia)

N-

Nebulaphobia- Fear of fog. (Homichlophobia)
Necrophobia- Fear of death or dead things.
Nelophobia- Fear of glass.
Neopharmaphobia- Fear of new drugs.
Neophobia- Fear of anything new.
Nephophobia- Fear of clouds.
Noctiphobia- Fear of the night.
Nomatophobia- Fear of names.
Nosocomephobia- Fear of hospitals.
Nosophobia or Nosemaphobia- Fear of becoming ill.
Nostophobia- Fear of returning home.
Novercaphobia- Fear of your step-mother.
Nucleomituphobia- Fear of nuclear weapons.
Nudophobia- Fear of nudity.
Numerophobia- Fear of numbers.
Nyctohylophobia- Fear of dark wooded areas or of forests at night
Nyctophobia- Fear of the dark or of night.

O-

Obesophobia- Fear of gaining weight.(Pocrescophobia)
Ochlophobia- Fear of crowds or mobs.
Ochophobia- Fear of vehicles.
Octophobia – Fear of the figure 8.
Odontophobia- Fear of teeth or dental surgery.
Odynophobia or Odynephobia- Fear of pain. (Algophobia)
Oenophobia- Fear of wines.
Oikophobia- Fear of home surroundings, house.(Domatophobia, Eicophobia)
Olfactophobia- Fear of smells.
Ombrophobia- Fear of rain or of being rained on.
Ommetaphobia or Ommatophobia- Fear of eyes.
Omphalophobia- Fear of belly buttons.
Oneirophobia- Fear of dreams.
Oneirogmophobia- Fear of wet dreams.
Onomatophobia- Fear of hearing a certain word or of names.
Ophidiophobia- Fear of snakes. (Snakephobia)
Ophthalmophobia- Fear of being stared at.
Opiophobia- Fear medical doctors experience of prescribing needed pain medications for patients.
Optophobia- Fear of opening one’s eyes.
Ornithophobia- Fear of birds.
Orthophobia- Fear of property.
Osmophobia or Osphresiophobia- Fear of smells or odors.
Ostraconophobia- Fear of shellfish.
Ouranophobia or Uranophobia- Fear of heaven.

P-

Pagophobia- Fear of ice or frost.
Panthophobia- Fear of suffering and disease.
Panophobia or Pantophobia- Fear of everything.
Papaphobia- Fear of the Pope.
Papyrophobia- Fear of paper.
Paralipophobia- Fear of neglecting duty or responsibility.
Paraphobia- Fear of sexual perversion.
Parasitophobia- Fear of parasites.
Paraskavedekatriaphobia- Fear of Friday the 13th.
Parthenophobia- Fear of virgins or young girls.
Pathophobia- Fear of disease.
Patroiophobia- Fear of heredity.
Parturiphobia- Fear of childbirth.
Peccatophobia- Fear of sinning or imaginary crimes.
Pediculophobia- Fear of lice.
Pediophobia- Fear of dolls.
Pedophobia- Fear of children.
Peladophobia- Fear of bald people.
Pellagrophobia- Fear of pellagra.
Peniaphobia- Fear of poverty.
Pentheraphobia- Fear of mother-in-law. (Novercaphobia)
Phagophobia- Fear of swallowing or of eating or of being eaten.
Phalacrophobia- Fear of becoming bald.
Phallophobia- Fear of a penis, esp erect.
Pharmacophobia- Fear of taking medicine.
Phasmophobia- Fear of ghosts.
Phengophobia- Fear of daylight or sunshine.
Philemaphobia or Philematophobia- Fear of kissing.
Philophobia- Fear of falling in love or being in love.
Philosophobia- Fear of philosophy.
Phobophobia- Fear of phobias.
Photoaugliaphobia- Fear of glaring lights.
Photophobia- Fear of light.
Phonophobia- Fear of noises or voices or one’s own voice; of telephones.
Phronemophobia- Fear of thinking.
Phthiriophobia- Fear of lice. (Pediculophobia)
Phthisiophobia- Fear of tuberculosis.
Placophobia- Fear of tombstones.
Plutophobia- Fear of wealth.
Pluviophobia- Fear of rain or of being rained on.
Pneumatiphobia- Fear of spirits.
Pnigophobia or Pnigerophobia- Fear of choking of being smothered.
Pocrescophobia- Fear of gaining weight. (Obesophobia)
Pogonophobia- Fear of beards.
Poliosophobia- Fear of contracting poliomyelitis.
Politicophobia- Fear or abnormal dislike of politicians.
Polyphobia- Fear of many things.
Poinephobia- Fear of punishment.
Ponophobia- Fear of overworking or of pain.
Porphyrophobia- Fear of the color purple.
Potamophobia- Fear of rivers or running water.
Potophobia- Fear of alcohol.
Pharmacophobia- Fear of drugs.
Proctophobia- Fear of rectums.
Prosophobia- Fear of progress.
Psellismophobia- Fear of stuttering.
Psychophobia- Fear of mind.
Psychrophobia- Fear of cold.
Pteromerhanophobia- Fear of flying.
Pteronophobia- Fear of being tickled by feathers.
Pupaphobia – Fear of puppets.
Pyrexiophobia- Fear of Fever.
Pyrophobia- Fear of fire.

Q-

R-

Radiophobia- Fear of radiation, x-rays.
Ranidaphobia- Fear of frogs.
Rectophobia- Fear of rectum or rectal diseases.
Rhabdophobia- Fear of being severely punished or beaten by a rod, or of being severely criticized. Also fear of magic.(wand)
Rhypophobia- Fear of defecation.
Rhytiphobia- Fear of getting wrinkles.
Rupophobia- Fear of dirt.
Russophobia- Fear of Russians.

S-

Samhainophobia: Fear of Halloween.
Sarmassophobia- Fear of love play. (Malaxophobia)
Satanophobia- Fear of Satan.
Scabiophobia- Fear of scabies.
Scatophobia- Fear of fecal matter.
Scelerophibia- Fear of bad men, burglars.
Sciophobia Sciaphobia- Fear of shadows.
Scoleciphobia- Fear of worms.
Scolionophobia- Fear of school.
Scopophobia or Scoptophobia- Fear of being seen or stared at.
Scotomaphobia- Fear of blindness in visual field.
Scotophobia- Fear of darkness. (Achluophobia)
Scriptophobia- Fear of writing in public.
Selachophobia- Fear of sharks.
Selaphobia- Fear of light flashes.
Selenophobia- Fear of the moon.
Seplophobia- Fear of decaying matter.
Sesquipedalophobia- Fear of long words.
Sexophobia- Fear of the opposite sex. (Heterophobia)
Siderodromophobia- Fear of trains, railroads or train travel.
Siderophobia- Fear of stars.
Sinistrophobia- Fear of things to the left or left-handed.
Sinophobia- Fear of Chinese, Chinese culture.
Sitophobia or Sitiophobia- Fear of food or eating. (Cibophobia)
Snakephobia- Fear of snakes. (Ophidiophobia)
Soceraphobia- Fear of parents-in-law.
Social Phobia- Fear of being evaluated negatively in social situations.
Sociophobia- Fear of society or people in general.
Somniphobia- Fear of sleep.
Sophophobia- Fear of learning.
Soteriophobia – Fear of dependence on others.
Spacephobia- Fear of outer space.
Spectrophobia- Fear of specters or ghosts.
Spermatophobia or Spermophobia- Fear of germs.
Spheksophobia- Fear of wasps.
Stasibasiphobia or Stasiphobia- Fear of standing or walking. (Ambulophobia)
Staurophobia- Fear of crosses or the crucifix.
Stenophobia- Fear of narrow things or places.
Stygiophobia or Stigiophobia- Fear of hell.
Suriphobia- Fear of mice.
Symbolophobia- Fear of symbolism.
Symmetrophobia- Fear of symmetry.
Syngenesophobia- Fear of relatives.
Syphilophobia- Fear of syphilis.

T-

Tachophobia- Fear of speed.
Taeniophobia or Teniophobia- Fear of tapeworms.
Taphephobia Taphophobia- Fear of being buried alive or of cemeteries.
Tapinophobia- Fear of being contagious.
Taurophobia- Fear of bulls.
Technophobia- Fear of technology.
Teleophobia- 1) Fear of definite plans. 2) Religious ceremony.
Telephonophobia- Fear of telephones.
Teratophobia- Fear of bearing a deformed child or fear of monsters or deformed people.
Testophobia- Fear of taking tests.
Tetanophobia- Fear of lockjaw, tetanus.
Teutophobia- Fear of German or German things.
Textophobia- Fear of certain fabrics.
Thaasophobia- Fear of sitting.
Thalassophobia- Fear of the sea.
Thanatophobia or Thantophobia- Fear of death or dying.
Theatrophobia- Fear of theatres.
Theologicophobia- Fear of theology.
Theophobia- Fear of gods or religion.
Thermophobia- Fear of heat.
Tocophobia- Fear of pregnancy or childbirth.
Tomophobia- Fear of surgical operations.
Tonitrophobia- Fear of thunder.
Topophobia- Fear of certain places or situations, such as stage fright.
Toxiphobia or Toxophobia or Toxicophobia- Fear of poison or of being accidently poisoned.
Traumatophobia- Fear of injury.
Tremophobia- Fear of trembling.
Trichinophobia- Fear of trichinosis.
Trichopathophobia or Trichophobia- Fear of hair. (Chaetophobia, Hypertrichophobia)
Triskaidekaphobia- Fear of the number 13.
Tropophobia- Fear of moving or making changes.
Trypanophobia- Fear of injections.
Tuberculophobia- Fear of tuberculosis.
Tyrannophobia- Fear of tyrants.

U-

Uranophobia or Ouranophobia- Fear of heaven.
Urophobia- Fear of urine or urinating.

V-

Vaccinophobia- Fear of vaccination.
Venustraphobia- Fear of beautiful women.
Verbophobia- Fear of words.
Verminophobia- Fear of germs.
Vestiphobia- Fear of clothing.
Virginitiphobia- Fear of rape.
Vitricophobia- Fear of step-father.

W-

Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons.
Wiccaphobia: Fear of witches and witchcraft.

 

X-

Xanthophobia- Fear of the color yellow or the word yellow.
Xenoglossophobia- Fear of foreign languages.
Xenophobia- Fear of strangers or foreigners.
Xerophobia- Fear of dryness.
Xylophobia- 1) Fear of wooden objects. 2) Forests.
Xyrophobia-Fear of razors.

Y-

Z-

Zelophobia- Fear of jealousy.
Zeusophobia- Fear of God or gods.
Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat.
Zoophobia- Fear of animals.

Opera suds

       

“No good opera plot can be sensible. … People do not sing when they are feeling sensible.” — W.H. Auden, 1961

We all know what an opera is, and even if we’ve never seen a soap opera, we’ve all had the feeling at some point that our life feels like one. But how did these art forms get their names, and are they really related?

The word opera means “work” in Italian (it is the plural of the Latin word opus, meaning “work” or “labor”).  Its usage as a noun describing a staged spectacle combining the arts of solo and choral singing, declamation, acting and dancing ( ie. a lot of hard work by many!) dates back to the late 16th and early 17th century. The earliest such composition recognized today as an opera — Dafne, by Jacopo Peri — was written in about 1597.  (The score to Peri’s later opera Euridice, which he wrote in 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day, and the earliest known opera that is still performed regularly today is Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, composed for the court of Mantua in 1607.) In the mid-18th century, the word opera broadened its usage to describe a whole genre of dramatic and performing art, rather than just a single staged production.

So how did we go from the lofty art form of centuries past to the modern-day soap opera — a radio/TV serial typically broadcast during the day about a cast of recurring characters whose interwoven lives are usually beset by high drama, emotion, suspense, romance, conflict, and moral and sexual predicaments? Well, I think we’ve just described a typical opera plot, which is generally built on melodrama and demands a necessary suspension of disbelief from the audience: so we’re good on the opera front. But why the soap?

The word opera was already in use in a non-operatic context several years before soap operas came into being. Horse opera was a popular term in the 1920s referring to film, radio or TV westerns (ie. theatrical films or programs depicting adventures in the American Old West); another name for “horse opera” — adopted slightly later, in the ’30s — was “oat opera”, or “oater”.

Clara, Lu and Em was the first radio drama of its kind — not about cowboys and Indians in the Wild West, but about real humdrum people leading less than humdrum lives. Written and performed by a trio of sorority sisters from Northwestern University (and originally conceived as a theatrical sketch), the show followed the lives of three women living in a small-town duplex. Starting life in 1930 on Chicago’s WGN-AM just three evenings a week, it quickly gained in popularity, getting picked up by NBC’s “Blue” syndication network and moving to daily daytime hours, where it was sponsored by Colgate Palmolive.  And so began a tradition of daytime radio dramas sponsored by soap manufacturers whose commercials targeted the house-proud launderers of the daytime hours: stay-at-home housewives tuned to a wireless world that magically transported them to lives and loves more dramatic than their own. The soap opera was born.

 

On pogey

A British friend tells you she’s “on pogey”. Should this be cause for celebration or commiseration? Sadly, it’s the latter, as explained in Anglophenia’s list of British terms for the unemployed …

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2012/11/the-brit-list-five-british-terms-for-the-unemployed/

 

The Brit List: Five British Terms for the Unemployed

By | Posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

A British dole queue. The past.

Made Redundant

Let’s start with the nicest possible way to go from being in gainful employment to not being in gainful employment, when your job ceases to exist. It’s nothing you’ve done wrong, it’s merely that the company cannot sustain your position any more, and as such, they cannot continue to employ you to do whatever it is that you do. However, they will offer some money for your trouble, and if you’ve been there a long time, you get more of it. So it’s a little odd that this upsetting, but impersonal, business practice is called being made redundant, rather than reaching the end of your funding or financially impractial. Might as well call it being surplus to requirements and have done with it.

Get The Sack

A less pleasant version of the above is when you’ve done something wrong, or are perceived to be a fifth wheel, and suddenly find yourself out of work with no severance pay or anything except a testy “you got 10 minutes to clear your desk, GO.”

The phrase dates back to 17th century France, where tradesmen would carry their tools in a hessian bag or sack. If they were sacked, they’d have to get the sack to put their stuff in. The phrase didn’t actually make its way across to England until the early 1800s, and by then it was already abstracted, to include all people in employment. In the North of England, they stuck with get the bag for a while, and in London get the empty was preferred.

Get the Spanish archer

As with get the sack, or sacked, this is a variation on a fairly well-known phrase. Sometimes a sacking comes with a suggestion of physical assault – most commonly from the boot or elbow, as in get the elbow or get the boot – as if you’re literally being  barged or kicked out of a job. Well, if you then take get the elbow as your starting phrase, it wouldn’t take too long for a witty mind to try and come up with further variations, to find an artful or comedic way of saying the same thing. Get the Spanish archer is a perfect example, because what would a Spanish archer be called (to a mocking British mind)? El Bow, naturally.

On The Dole

The benefit paid out to unemployed people in the UK has been known as the dole since the end of the First World War. The word comes from the term doling-out, as it was seen as a charitable gift from the state, after the trauma of war. A typical early reference appeared in the 1919 Daily Mail, in which they tell claimants “you won’t draw your out-of-work dole of 29s. this week.”

This then informed all future references to unemployment benefit, from Dole Office (where you go to sign on) to being on the dole to being a dole-ite (if you were unemployed for a long time).

Soon it found its way into popular song, from “Doledrums” by the La’s to “Love on the Dole” by the Libertines, to “All The Way From Memphis” by Mott The Hoople:

“It’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll, from Top of the Pops to drawing the dole”

On Pogey 

Another slang term for unemployment benefit, this time coming from the Scottish term for a workhouse: pogie. The workhouse would be where people with no money would end up, and so going on pogey became a hand-me-down expression for taking the welfare check. Sadly it never made it to a Mott the Hoople song.