Sesquipedalophobia or Longphobia aka. hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long or complicated words. Ironically, the original word naming the phobia may trigger it. There are people who suffer from the phobia. However, the phobia is not recognized by most doctors. The causes of the phobia are unknown but might stem from difficulties to learn reading back at school, or certain brain patterns. It might be associated to a more worrisome mental illness. Most of the long words can be found in the medical and chemical vocabulary or large numbers, such as a certain acid, something else, another thing and another thing. The longest English word, which has 189,819 letters and takes more than 3 hours to be fully pronounced, is a chemical name. For these reasons, people suffering from this phobia should avoid becoming doctors or chemists.
| Language phobias |
|---|
| unspecific language phobias Logophobia - ðe fear of words Abbreviatophobia - ðe fear of abbrevations Micrologophobia - ðe fear of short words Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - ðe fear of long words Figuralisphobia - ðe fear if figurative language Synechisesfalmeniproforophobia - ðe fear of words one is not able to pronounce Eveadphobia ðe fear of advertisements in ðe language Evenki Aibohphobia - the fear of palindromes Xenoglossophobia - the fear of forgein languages |