Any word that appears on paper is a "real" word, in some sense. But it appears to have no claim to existence outside the purposeful lengthening (for effect) of sesquipedaliophobia. It is difficult to find any mention of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia that doesn't remark on the irony of the fact that the word for "fear of long words" is such a long word. It seems likely to me that the hippopotomonstro- prefix attached to the shorter word sesquipedaliophobia is there simply to make the resulting word longer than the Mary Poppins word. Burrata has become a global cheese, but its story originated in the 1920s in the southern Italian Murgia territory (part of the Apulia region), in the outskirts of the city of Andria, under the. Two different reference works point out that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is one letter longer than supercalifragilisticexpialadocious, a nonce word that became famous from a song in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. Some are acarophobia, a fear of itching, zemmiphobia, fear of the great mole rat, nictophobia, fear of backing into doorknobs phobosophobia, fear of fear and hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, fear of long words!īut that is as early as the entries get for either word. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Mark Forsyth (Goodreads Author) (shelved 28 times as etymology) avg rating 4.22 9,905 ratings published 2011. *Obviously by combining the appropriate root word with the word phobia, any number of unlikely fears can be named. The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language (Hardcover) by. However, a significantly earlier instance occurs in Dennis Coon, Introduction to Psychology: Exploration and Application, second edition (1980), which includes this footnote:
Sesquipedaliophobia long words also humorously hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia PHOBIA: FEAR OR DISLIKE OF, OR AVERSION TO. One of the earliest instance of either hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia or sesquipedaliophobia in a Google Books search is from Chris Aldrich, The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families (2002), which lists both of them, in this entry: