So Long, Phobia!
Oops. That should say "so long phobia," because it is a very long word.
Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. We’ll try to keep this one from getting too wordy.
The fear of long words is called Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
One of my favorite low-energy shows is “The Floor” on Fox, also streamable on Hulu.
It’s got a very simple yet entrancing presence. 100 people enter, each with an “expert” category. Many of these categories are based on pop culture, such as Harry Potter, famous crime-fighting duos, or celebrities on the red carpet.
But there are also incredibly basic categories like “junk in the trunk,” which is literally a list of things you might have in the trunk of your car.
A player is randomly selected, then chooses who to battle. They play the expert category of the player who was chosen, going back and forth to try and identify the person or item, or complete the phrase they see on the screen.
Whoever wins then earns that spot on the floor. If the challenger wins, they keep their expert category; if the defender wins, they obtain the expert category of the challenger. The goal is to have the largest chunk of the floor at the end of each episode for a $20,000 prize, or to be the last person standing at the end of the game, which is a cool quarter-million dollars.
It’s fun and easy to play along with, and the cutaways of host Rob Lowe’s disappointment after a particularly bad wrong answer leads to someone passing (and losing valuable time) are delightful.
Was that far more exposition than you needed for this context? Yes, but sometimes it’s nice to have a show you don’t have to think so hard about.
Side note: The show has many versions, and at least the U.S. installment is filmed in Dublin, a city with many quirky sightseeing activities. Doesn’t this Irish tea truck look so cute?
One category during the most recent season was “phobias.” The board would name the phobia and show a related picture, and the contestants had to identify what it was a fear of. This soon turned into identifying what was in the pictures. I doubt someone knows that a fear of stairs or steep slopes is called bathmophobia, but seeing a picture of stairs makes identifying that phobia easier.
I legitimately cannot remember if the phobia we’re about to get into was on the show (I told you, very little brain activity is happening while we’re watching). But here we go!
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia—sometimes spelled hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, with a bonus p in the middle—is the fear of long words. These can be long, niche words or multisyllabic common words, with the phobia changing based on the individual.
Symptoms include fear and anxiety over reading or speaking long words. Some people even avoid reading altogether to minimize the risk of coming across a hefty word.
The phobia’s etymology is primarily a cruel prank. The first two portions are a reference to a hippopotamus and a monster, two big, scary things.
The “sesquipedalo” section stems from the Latin word “sesquipedalis,” literally translating to “a foot and a half long,” or “half a yard.”
Put everything together, and you’ve got “hippopotamus monster foot and a half long fear.”
Sesquipedalia dates back to the first century BCE, when the Roman poet Horace criticized writers for using long words. The longer use of hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is far more recent. Aimee Nezhukumatathil is credited with coining the term in the year 2000.
In formal writing, the term is often reduced to “sesquipedalophobia.” Still a mouthful, but at least a more manageable one.