Fear of hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

This is an authentic article from last year I came across today, and I found it quite weird in a number of ways. Go ahead and read it:


Man Suffers From Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- the fear of long words

Timbuktu - Harold B. Shumaker III, CEO of Shumaker, Inc. - the largest maker of wooden shoes in the world due to their high number of elfin employees - has just discovered he is afraid...of long words.

“It’s only words that are over six letter...s long, genera...lly.” Shumaker stuttered to the Conglomerate thought we were not allowed to mention the title of the newspaper , it being 12 letters long, for fear that he would run away screaming. Shumaker, who can no longer pronounce his last name without a tremor in his voice did not always suffer from this condition. Rather, one day last month, the disease came upon him abruptly.

Shumaker’s wife recounted, “He was giving a speech for the Ecological Legion of Very Enthusiastic Shoemakers (E.L.V.E.S), he used to be a wonderful public speaker, you know, very eloquent with an extensive vocabulary - when someone threw a large smoked ham at his head which knocked him unconscious.” From this point on Shumaker refused to speak in long sentences, does not like descriptive adjectives, or the word adjective itself, and cowers into the corner whenever he hears a long word. Mrs. Shumaker added, “He even threw his beloved Thesaurus away!.”

It should also be noted that Mrs.. Shumaker and this reporter had to adjourn to another room for the interview when Mr. Shumaker began whimpering and rocking back and forth in the fetal position after the word “enthusiastic” was said.

Shumaker’s physician, Eyam A. Qwak, MD, assures that this condition should disappear in time but he is not clear on what the extent of the healing period will be. “When someone is hit by flying pork it tends to cause more damage than the traditional rubber chicken usually does - this has been my experience.”

Dr. Frank Skitso, Shumaker’s personal psychiatrist, explains the delicate nature of the disease. “Part of the problem is that he’s constantly being asked what he has been diagnosed with. Hippopotomonstrosesquip -pedaliophobia is the scientific term for his condition yet, due to the nature of the disease, because the word is thirty-six letters long, he is afraid to pronounce it.” This has resulted in Shumaker contracting a fear of phobias or Phobophobia since most phobias themselves are over six letter long. Shumaker is unable to pronounce any of his compounding conditions.

“I tried hypnosis with him which seemed to help a little, but that word is eight letters long so we must be careful. We sit and slowly go through words in the dictionary, working our way up size-wise. Right now we are at five-letter words with two syllables in them so there is some definite progress.” Skitso said.

When asked how it would be possible to judge when Shumaker is cured Skitso responded, “I'm not sure but, once he is able to pronounce his last name without falling to the ground like a limp rag and twitching as a line of drool makes it’s way down his chin I think he’ll be well on his way to recovery.”

Lisa Game has discovered during her research of this article that she has Arachibutyrophobia - the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth - as well as Zemmiphobia - the fear of the great mole rat. Although she has yet to see what the great mole rat looks like she is sure she would be afraid of it should she encounter it.