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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Strange Word Week 3

The words used to describe the fear of certain things, "phobias," have always fascinated me.  Some are simple to understand, like hydrophobia: the fear of water.  Some are bizarre, like nephophobia: the fear of clouds.  Other phobias throw you a real curve ball, like:

dikephobia
noun
-fear of justice


I'm not so humored by the meaning of this one.  It's the pronunciation.  Try saying it a few ways.  Classy, huh?  I'm not going to tell you how to say it, but I am curious.  When you do, do you sound like you're afraid of butch lesbians or like you're afraid of man parts?

Any other good phobias you can think of?

6 comments:

AmberLaShell said...

haha, I totally said it in my head as being afraid of butch lesbians,, but then had to think about the man parts, and now I get it. haha!

amberlashell.com

Gina said...

Related story: I was the leader in a school organization, and one of our new members my senior year had the last name "Dikoffe" No joke. How do you pronounce that? It took me ten whole minutes to get the group back under control after my multiple attempts to pronounce that name correctly. The kid never showed up, apparently he switched schools at the last minute, so I'll never know how his name should be read. Pity.

Cole Garrett said...

@ Amber Yeah, that's what crossed my mind first, too.

@ Gina LOL. I would change schools, too.

Kevin said...

I sat here for a couple minutes trying to decide between one or the other, and I think I'm leaning more toward "the fear of man parts."

Whether it's really a phobia, I don't know, but I especially love Aibohphobia, the fear of palindromes. Notice how it's a palindrome itself. Oh, the irony.

Cole Garrett said...

Aibohphobia . . . nice one.

Amy said...

Yep, I said the butch lesbians one. Selenophobia, fear of the moon, makes me think of being afraid of Jennifer Lopez, circa 1997.

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