More Fear

I usually publish on the 15th and the end of the month. Todays blog is published earlier, because today is Friday. Not just any Friday, but Friday the 13th!

Todays blog entry is part 2 of a previous blog entry called Fear. In part one, I ended with these definitions:

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia
fear of 666 (the number of the beast)

Triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13

Friggatriskaidekaphobia - fear of Friday the 13th

 

Scholars are unsure how the nuber 13, or Friday the 13th came to be considered unlucky, but many people believe it to be so.
 

Another fear similar to triskaidekaphobia is tetraphobia - fear of the number 4.

Who is afraid of 4?

In China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Korea and Vietnam etc. as well as in many other East-Asian and some Southeast-Asian countries, it is not uncommon for buildings (including offices, apartments, hotels) to lack floors with numbers that include the digit 4, and Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia's 1xxx-9xxx series of mobile phones does not include any model numbers beginning with a 4. This originates in Chinese, where the pronunciation of the word for "four" (四, sì in Mandarin) is very similar to that of the word for "death" (死, sǐ in Mandarin), and remains such in the other countries' Sino-Xenic vocabulary.



More Fears:


Ablutophobia - fear of bathing, washing, or cleaning

Autodysomophobia - fear of one that has a vile odor

Halitophobia - fear of bad breath

Ailurophobia - fear of cats

Amychophobia - fear of being scratched (fits with Ailurophobia, above)

Anglophobia - fear of the English

Anglopedagophobia - fear of English teachers

Angloexetasiphobia - fear of English tests

Arachibutyrophobia - fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

 

Acousticophobia - fear of noise

Acousticonyctophobia - fear of noises in the middle of the night.

Harpaxophobia - fear that you are being robbed

Botanophobia - fear of plants.

Anthophobia - fear of flowers. Flowers? Really???

Sigmund Freud had pteridophobia, which is fear of ferns.

Sometimes a fern is just a fern...

Feed me, Seymour! Feed Me!!!

 

Astrophobia - fear of outer space

Heliophobia - fear of the sun

Selenophobia- fear of the moon

Siderophobia - fear of stars

Aviophobia - fear of planes...

Siderodromophobia - ...trains...

Amaxophobia - ...and automobiles

Barophobia - fear of gravity

Basophobia - fear of falling

Bathmophobia - fear of stairs or slopes

Basobathophobia - fear of falling down the stars

Barobathobasophobia - fear of gravity making you fall down the stairs

Chaetophobia - fear of hair

Phalacrophobia - fear of becoming bald

Peladophobia - fear of bald people.

Chiclephobia - fear of gum.

Oprah Winfrey is reported to suffer from this, the result of a childhood trauma.

Chiroptophobia - fear of bats

Anthrochirophobia -fear of Batman

Have you seen her all in gold

Like a queen in days of old

She shoots colors all around

Like a sunset going down

Have you seen the lady fairer

It's not easy
being green.

Chromatophobia - fear of colors

Erythrophobia - fear of the color red

Chrysophobia - fear of the color orange

Xanthophobia - fear of the color yellow

Chlorophobia - fear of the color green

Cyanophobia - fear of the color blue

Porphyrophobia - fear of the color purple

She comes in colors everywhere

She combs her hair

She's like a rainbow

Coming colors in the air

Oh, everywhere

She comes in colors

I is Fluffy of the Borg
You will be assimilated
Resistance is futile.

Cyberphobia - fear of or aversion to computers and of learning new technologies

Cyborgphobia - fear of The Borg

Mechanophobia - fear of machines

Technophobia - fear of (new) technology

Dipsophobia- Fear of drinking.

Emetophobia - fear of vomiting

Often, these two go together.

Geophobia - fear of earth

Anemophobia - fear of wind
Pyrophobia - fear of fire
Aquaphobia - fear of water

Globophobia - fear of balloons

Gymnophobia - fear of nudity

Gynophobia - fear of women

Gynogymnophobia - fear of naked women

Hemophobia - fear of blood

Hemomariaphobia - fear of bloody marys

Klaniaphobia - fear of "breaking wind"

Lilapsophobia - fear of tornadoes or hurricanes

I lived in San Antonio, Texas, for several years, which (unfortunately) coincided with the arrival of hurricane Gilbert in 1988. At the time, I was working as a cook at small diner in the parking lot of a strip mall, between an auto parts store and a chiropractor. Hurricanes are ginormous strorms, and although Gilbert actually made landfall south of us, but the northern edge of the storm hit us, and we got stormed upon - lots of rain, wind... ...and tornados. According to the local news, a total of 12 were confirmed in the Bexar County (San Antonio). The were mainly F-1 (babies, except these "babies" could destroy buildings). And one of them ran me over. The storm was caused the power to go out, and so we had to close the store because most people wanted there food cooked, which required electricity. While waiting for the power to return, we preformed cleaning duties. I took out the trash. This required going outside behind the building to the dumpster. As  I was tossing the bags into the dumpster, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I turned to examine it better, and my first thought was "that's and unusual cloud formation." My second thought was "holy @#$% that's a tornado!!!" Having never seen a live tornado before, I watched it for a moment before another thought entered my mind: "It's heading this way." It was! And the reason it was because about a mile or so down the road was a trailer park. Although scientist can't explain why, tornados are attracted to mobile homes. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and the restaurant was directly between the tornado and the trailer park. I accessed my brain for a logical, rational course of action. After analyzing the data, my brain returned the following as the best option: Get the @#$% out of it's way.!!! I ran inside, past the Manager. "What's happening?" he asked. "A @#% tornado is going to hit us!!!" Somehow, I knew that the safest place in a tornado is in a door frame. Actually, that's for earthquakes. For a tornado, you got to the basement (preferably a storm cellar) but the restaurant didn't have a basement. We did have a back hallway - which is where I went to hide. The manager thought for half a moment, them in a semi-authoritive voice told everyone to "follow Doug" We waited for a moment, then we were lifted up and taken to the Land of OZ!!! Just kidding. The tornado hit us, and (luckily) the building stood up to the storm. Our neighbor the Chiropractor was not as fortunate. His sign after the tornado read: CH R PR CT R Vanna, I'd like to buy a vowel. Or four. The trailor park was demolished. There was one injury in our area. We saw, right after the tornado hit, an ambulance at the nearby grocery store. I learned what happened sometime later from Juan, who worked at the grocery store: The produce section of the store had a high, vaulted ceiling and when the tornado hit the building, several of the skylight windows blew out. This caused the air to swirls around violently, causing assorted fruits and vegetable to go flying around that section of the store. "It was a giant Caesar salad" he said. Not "tossed" salad, but a "Caesar" salad. The assistant produce manager, Caesar Martinez, was standing in the middle of the produce section when the tornado hit. He was injured by flying carrots, are required several stitches.

Heliophotophobia
Fear of sunlight

Necrophobia - fear of dead things

Kinemortophobia - fear of zombies (living dead things)

Sanguivoriphobia - fear of vampires (undead things)

Coimetrophobia - fear of cemeteries

Nomophobia - fear of being out of mobile phone contact

You had to know it would happen

Pogonophobia - fear of beards

Pupaphobia - fear of puppets

Muppephobia - fear of muppets

Pediophobia - fear of dolls

Barbiphobia - fear of Barbie

Sesquipedalophobia - fear of long words

And its a long word!

But not as long as hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of monstrously long words)!

Turophobia - fear of cheese

Tryoturophobia would then
be the fear of swiss cheese  

 

Trypophobia - fear of holes or textures with a pattern of holes

Tryoturophobia would then be the fear of swiss cheese

Xenophobia - fear of aliens.

This is more often a prejudice than a true phobia. Common manifestations are the fear that illegal aliens are going to bring leprosy and other ichy diseases into the country, and then take our job. And refuse to speak English!

And its not so much that they are not speaking English, is that one doesn't know what they are talking about. Comedian Paul Rodriguez called this Angloparanoia, but a better word would be:

Xenoomiliaphobia - fear of foreigners talking about you.

Xenaphobia Some years ago, I worked in the local mall - cooking at one of the restaurants at the food court. I liked to go to the coffee shop when I got off work, or just had the day off. A lot of other mall employees did, including Katja. And with a name like "Katja" you might inferred that, because of her unusual name, that she was from another country. If you heard her speak, you would have no doubt. Katja was Hungarian. And although she spoke English well, she spoke with a distinct accent - the result of having been born in Hungary. Katja worked at one of the many trendy-but-overpriced women's clothing stores. And the only reason she was hired there was because she was attractive. And slender. Larger and/or less-attractive women would come in, see Katja in an outfit, and subconsciously believe that they would look as cute as Katja if they wore a similar outfit. Her exotic Hungarian accent also helped. Kafephobia fear of coffee and coffee shops One afternoon, having finished her shift at the trendy-but-overpriced women's clothing store, Katja came to the coffee shop to have a cup of coffee (trendy, but overpriced) while waiting for her brother to come and pick her up. I was already there, along with two other friends (Miguel and Bettie). Katja bought a cup of coffee, and joined us outside on the patio. After about twenty minutes or so, Her brother (Istvan) eventually arrived. Katja was not ready to leave yet, so she told her brother to get a cup of coffee. Since Istvan liked coffee, he did just that. We continued to chat and at one point, Katja appeared to remember something, so she turned to Istvan and quietly told him "Minden a bázis az a miénk." She was speaking Hungarian. Istvan replied with "A gyors barna róka ugrott át a lusta kutyát." He was speaking Hungarian too. Katja turned back towards the main conversation, and found Bettie giving he the stink-eye, glaring at her. "You weren't just talking about me, were you?" she asked sternly. "No" Katja answered innocently. "We were just discussing a family matters. Nothing about you."   "You shouldn't be talking that foreign @#$%" Bettie informed her. "This is America!" "Yeah" Miguel added. "Learn to speak Spanish!"

 

 

 

Darthvaderphobia
fear of the darkside

Xenophobia also means fear of space aliens, also known as extra terrestrials or ETs .

This could also be called Astroxenophobia, to distinguished it from the fear of earthly aliens.

Fear of space aliens is a more recent phenomena, the result of science fiction. Unlike regular xenophobia, no one is afraid that ETs are going to take our jobs.

Astroxenophobes are afraid of being enslaved, eaten, or worse.

The most famous incident of xenophobia was the 1938 radio drama The War of the Worlds.

 

Adapted from the 1898 novel by H.G.Wells, The War of the Worlds was Directed and narrated by Orson Welles, and performed as a Halloween episode of the The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

It became famous for causing mass panic.

The first two thirds of the one-hour broadcast were presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, which suggested an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress. Compounding the issue was the fact that the Mercury Theatre on the Air was a sustaining show (it ran without commercial breaks), adding to the program's realism, and that others were primarily listening to Edgar Bergen and only tuned in to the show during a musical interlude, thereby missing the introduction that told that the show was a fictional drama.

The War of the Worlds was adapted

to the cinema in 1953, but nobody

panicked.

In the days following the adaptation, there was widespread outrage in the media. The program's news-bulletin format was described as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers (which had lost advertising revenue to radio) and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the broadcast and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. Despite these complaints—or perhaps in part because of them—the episode secured Welles's fame as a dramatist.

 

Macky Rae says we don't have anything to fear from aliens. He does not think a technologically advanced civilization would travel billions and billions of miles just to kick our ass.

And even if they did, it would be over in less than a minute.

MACKY: But I wouldn't worry about it.

 

ME: OK

 

MACK: What I would worry about is terminators coming back from the future to kick out ass.

 

 

 

Xylophobia - fear of wood

Dentrophobia - fear of trees

Christougenniatikodentrophobia - fear of Christmas trees

Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat.