The Phobia Listhttp://www.phobialist.com
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Franklin D. Roosevelt said that during his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933. While you gotta respect the man, old Frankie obviously didn't know what the hell he was talking about. To find out how wrong he was, check out Phobialist.com. Sure, there are some serious ailments such as Felinophobia (fear of cats) or Pyrophobia (fear of fire), but it's mostly one long list of obscure dreads. Take Kakorrhaphiophobia, a fear of failure or defeat. Betcha that one comes up in a spelling bee, huh? Or how about the biggest horror of dogs — Arachibutyrophobia, a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. Me, I suffer from Zemmiphobia, which is a fear of the great mole rat. I have no idea what the great mole rat is, but it scares me stupid. Which may explain why I'm writing this. Anyway, not only can you find a specific terror by either scientific name or cause, but you can possibly find help and/or treatment for your particular affliction by following one of many links. Plus, you can find out how phobias get their names (which doesn't explain why the fear of Long Words is Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia or Sesquipedalophobia. That's just mean, like putting an "s" in lisp). Amaze your friends by knowing that the fear of work is not called laziness, but rather Ergophobia or Ponophobia while a fear of Thinking is Phronemophobia (but how would you figure that out?). The funny thing is out of all the rather specific and often silly things you can be afraid of, the only phobia I didn't encounter was a fear of fear. Go figure.
—Patrick J. Graney
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2001.