Paraskavedekatriaphobia Anyone?

Paraskavedekatriaphobia is, of course, the fear of Friday the 13th which is today. While looking this phobia up earlier this morning, I got to thinking about various different phobias and where they come from.

 

Then I let it stew on my brain for a little while, or is that stew on my little brain for a while? No bother, as I thought about it a little longer, I thought that there has to be a source for all of these different phobias and their explanations.

 

There is.

 

Several. Different. Sites. Don't believe me, just Google phobias and their meanings, and in 0.18 seconds you will 115,000 hits. Isn't the internet wonderful?

 

I wonder if there is a fear of using the internet? My answer, later.

 

First off though, I thought that I would share the ten most common phobias, according to Phobia (Q).

 

1. Agoraphobia - Fear of open spaces, leaving a safe place, or crowded public places
2. Claustophobia - Fear of confined spaces
3. Acrophobia - Fear of heights
4. Mysophobia - Fear of being contaminated with dirt or germs
5. Xenophobia - Fear of strangers or foreigners
6. Necrophobia - Fear of death or dead things
7. Brontophobia - Fear of thunder and lightning
8. Carcinophobia - Fear of cancer
9. Aviophobia - Fear of flying
10. Arachnophobia - Fear of spiders

The following are just fun, unless of course you are suffering from one:

1. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - Fear of long words (kind of ironic, considering the size of the word - I imagine that if you are suffering from this phobia, you really hated this entry.)
2. Sesquipedalophobia - Fear of long words (wait a minute! wasn't that what the above definition was for? Oh, I get it, one is for those that are really afraid of long words and the other is for those that are only kinda-sorta afraid.)
3. Scelerophobia - Fear of bad men, burglars (you mean it isn't dontrobmephobia?)
4. Ablutophobia - Fear of washing or bathing (also known as youreallystinkaphobia)
5. Allodoxaphobia - Fear of opinions (have no fear, I do not suffer from this)
6. Arachibutyrophobia - Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth (you have to be kidding me, right?)
7. Cyprianophobia, Cypridophobia, Cyprinophobia, Cypriphobia - Fear of prostitutes or venereal disease (so bad that they gave it four different names)
8. Ecclesiophobia - Fear of going to church (at least they didn't call it Catholiphobia)
9. Hamartophobia -Fear of sinning (guarantee that they don't suffer from #8(of list 2) if they have this)
10. Hellenologophobia - Fear of Greek terms or complex scientific terminology (if you have this, I am pretty sure that you have passed out, or something by now)

 

I cannot find anything that is an actual scientific term for a fear of the internet, other than internet phobia, or social phobia, which in my opinion are kind of boring names. Do you have one?

 

All this talk/writing about phobias has spawned another idea for my blog... Phobia Fridays!! Oh yeah, you know that you will be coming back for more. Right?

 

 

 

* All these phobias made my spell check go whacky. :) I like it!