Do you know what the fear of long words is? Well, it's
hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
Fear of long words
I think that word is just a silly joke. According to reference.com, the Latin root "sesquipedali-" means "long word" (literally "a foot and a half long"), so "sesquipedaliophobia" would be sufficient to convey the meaning.
"Hippopoto-" and "monstro-" don't convey any additional meaningful information; they just make the word excessively and ironically long. "Fear of long words" becomes the ridiculous "fear of long hippopotamus monster words".
In fact, the commonly cited word is a mess as a compound, because "hippopotamus" is composed of the words "hippos" ("horse") and "potamos" ("riverine"); so splitting the root at "hippopot-" makes no sense.
"Hippopoto-" and "monstro-" don't convey any additional meaningful information; they just make the word excessively and ironically long. "Fear of long words" becomes the ridiculous "fear of long hippopotamus monster words".
In fact, the commonly cited word is a mess as a compound, because "hippopotamus" is composed of the words "hippos" ("horse") and "potamos" ("riverine"); so splitting the root at "hippopot-" makes no sense.
"Sesquipedaliophobia" is already fearfully long but if you wanted to remove some of the silliness from the joke you could change it from a "a foot and a half long" to something like "a league, a mile, a stadion, an arpent, a perch, a pace, a step, a cubit, a foot, a palm, an inch, a digit and a half long". What would that be ... ? Something like "leugamilliaristadiactiperticapassigradicubitipespalmiuncisesquidigitaliophobia" ... I dunno Latin but this is funnier (and longer) than "fearofmonsterhippotamuslongwords".
In fact I think the best word for this concept would be "megalogophobia".
"Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia" meaning the fear of the number 666 is another long phobia word. It's almost as long as "hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia".
"Known by a number of names - Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, Sesquipedalophobia, and Fear of Long Words being the most common - the problem often significantly impacts the quality of life."
http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?SDID=1404:1595
http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?SDID=1404:1595
Paul,
"hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia"
That word scares me, lol. Hippopotamus something, lol.
"hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia"
That word scares me, lol. Hippopotamus something, lol.
Haha people. I am doing a porject on this, and most of the roots for this word doens't even make sense!!