Wednesday, 6/24

The word is itself amazing. The fact that means what it means makes it even better.

I've just finished reading a book called “A People's History of the Peculiar” which, as you can imagine, is filled with all sorts of weird & wonderful facts. Among the many bizarre things was a section on phobias—some of the things that people are afraid of. And it was in that section that I came across what might be one of the greatest words ever--

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

Seriously, that's the word—hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, 36 letters of English language awesomeness. And while any 36-letter word would be rather awesome in and of itself, it's what hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia means that's the icing on the cake. And just what DOES hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia mean, you ask? Well, I answer, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words.

I kid you not.

Go ahead; copy and paste “ hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia” into Google and you'll find out it's legit. You'll find out that someone, somewhere, came up with a very long word to describe the fear of very long words. I don't know if they did it ironically, or if it just worked out that way, but the word and the fear it describes could not have been a better match.

You, in fact, could not have come up with a better word to describe the fear of long words.

Not only that, but if you put “ hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia” in Google it also pops up a song called “ Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (The Long Word Song)”, put together by someone who not only had an inkling that the word existed but also wrote a song about it.

Don't believe me?

I'm always amazed by some of the weird things I come across in my everyday life, and this 36-letter word may be one of the best. Now, all I need to do is find a way to work it into normal conversation. Or to figure out how to actually pronounce it. Either one of those would work.

(jim@wmqt.com), obviously NOT suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia!