Spiders, snakes, darkness, heights… we all have something that makes us shiver. However, there are phobias not as common as claustrophobia or arachnophobia, with names so tongue-twisting it takes a good moment to pronounce them! Here are the ones I found the weirdest:
Triskaidekaphobia: fear of the number 13
We’ve all heard some superstitions about the number 13 (for example, Friday 13 being an unlucky day). However, there are some people who truly fear that number - they take great care to avoid using or doing anything related to it.
Talking about triskaidekaphobia, there is a related phobia widely spread across Eastern countries: tetraphobia, fear of the number 4. In Chinese, the word for four sounds quite similar to the word for death. This superstition is so common that sometimes buildings are missing the fourth floor…
Xanthophobia: fear of the colour yellow
The sun, daffodils, rubber ducks or Van Gogh’s paintings… all yellow things scare sufferers of xanthophobia. Some of them may even fear the word yellow! I wonder how those people manage to live a normal life - or do they lock themselves up in their non-yellow houses forever?
Turophobia: fear of cheese
I don’t know about you, but I just can’t imagine my life without cheese on my pizza or toast… However, there are people who can’t stand the mere thought about it. Some of them may fear one type of cheese, while others may fear cheese altogether.
Arachibutyrophobia: the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth
Another food-related phobia that makes a peanut butter jelly sandwich a tool of horror instead of a tasty snack.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: the fear of long words
Oh, the irony! Whoever invented this phobia’s name must be a monster. I’ve had troubles believing it’s an actual phobia and not just a joke. However - I found the sites with advice how to cure it, so maybe there’s a grain of truth in that?
If you want to learn more about phobias, you can find a list of (probably) all known phobias here: http://phobialist.com/. Maybe you’ll find even more interesting phobias than the ones I found :)
Once you memorize them, take a quiz on weird phobias here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11159088/Quiz-Can-you-name-the-phobia.html
Sources:
http://phobialist.com/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinabarca/weird-phobias-that-you-may-not-even-know-you-have#.ufNmZY3vOj
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/10289366/13-of-the-most-unusual-phobias.html
Triskaidekaphobia: fear of the number 13
We’ve all heard some superstitions about the number 13 (for example, Friday 13 being an unlucky day). However, there are some people who truly fear that number - they take great care to avoid using or doing anything related to it.
Talking about triskaidekaphobia, there is a related phobia widely spread across Eastern countries: tetraphobia, fear of the number 4. In Chinese, the word for four sounds quite similar to the word for death. This superstition is so common that sometimes buildings are missing the fourth floor…
Xanthophobia: fear of the colour yellow
The sun, daffodils, rubber ducks or Van Gogh’s paintings… all yellow things scare sufferers of xanthophobia. Some of them may even fear the word yellow! I wonder how those people manage to live a normal life - or do they lock themselves up in their non-yellow houses forever?
Turophobia: fear of cheese
I don’t know about you, but I just can’t imagine my life without cheese on my pizza or toast… However, there are people who can’t stand the mere thought about it. Some of them may fear one type of cheese, while others may fear cheese altogether.
Arachibutyrophobia: the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: the fear of long words
Oh, the irony! Whoever invented this phobia’s name must be a monster. I’ve had troubles believing it’s an actual phobia and not just a joke. However - I found the sites with advice how to cure it, so maybe there’s a grain of truth in that?
If you want to learn more about phobias, you can find a list of (probably) all known phobias here: http://phobialist.com/. Maybe you’ll find even more interesting phobias than the ones I found :)
Once you memorize them, take a quiz on weird phobias here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11159088/Quiz-Can-you-name-the-phobia.html
Sources:
http://phobialist.com/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinabarca/weird-phobias-that-you-may-not-even-know-you-have#.ufNmZY3vOj
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/10289366/13-of-the-most-unusual-phobias.html
Comments
The fear of the number 13 is the most popular. I guess we all know it from our childhoods. I heard that in Japan there is no 13th floor and everywhere that avoid using this number. Even in Poland when happens 13th day of month and it is friday everyone seems to be so excited and waiting for something unusual to happen.
For the first time I hear about fear of the colour yellow and the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. The second one seems to be more rational since someone might have some unpleasant memories about eating peanut butter, but being afraid of the colour seems to be crazy.
I looked at the phobia list. Most of them are normal human fears or things we dread like fear of pain/staying single/diseases etc. When does it stop being a fear and starts being a phobia and how many people actually suffer from those phobias? Here are a few that I found to be "interesting": fear of wind, fear of books, fear of chopsticks, fear of food or eating, fear of learning.
I also found a fear that I "have" - "Ligyrophobia" which is a fear of loud noises. I'm pretty sure that I react more to loud noises than other people but I just think of it as being more uncomfortable than fearful feeling. Supposedly there was a huge renovation in a building where I lived as an infant. And later on when I was a child I really dreaded drills and loud hand driers at restaurants (I even hid when my father had to drill a hole). A couple of years ago I noticed that I still react to noises (fireworks, loud bangs, children) more than others. Anyway I still wouldn't call it a "phobia".
There's a huge difference between a "normal" fear and a phobia. If you just feel uncomfortable in a specific situation, that's not a phobia yet. But if you tried to avoid specific thing or situation to a great extent and it would influence you life, it would be a phobia.
By the way, I'm also very sensitive to loud noises and I feel great discomfort when some sudden loud noise occurs unexpectedly. In my case, it's not a phobia either. When I was a child though, I remember I was afraid to change TV channels because of one event when some channel emmited a particularly loud advertisement that scared me so much I ran out of the room instead of turning the TV off. :)
Most of them are pretty ridiculous, right? I mean fear of cheese? How? Cheese is love, cheese is life. On the other hand the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth makes sense... somewhat... I love peanut butter and it's quite and unpleasant feeling when it sticks to the roof of my mouth. But calling it a phobia is a bit of an overstatement.
Also I'd like to confirm that tittle-tattle about tetraphobia and missing floors. A friend of mine who's been to Japan told me that there really were no 4th floors sometimes since similarily to Chinese words for 4 and death can sound pretty much the same.
You said that with the fear of 4 there are some things disappearing - I have heard it is quite simmilar with number 13 :D Especially in USA, they tend to skip this number very often.
According to fear of cheese - Turophobia - I wonder how this fear "works". Is it a fear of calories, a way they produce it, or is cheese just awful, disgusting for them? Really I just have no idea how it works haha :D
Actually all of those sounds to me like a joke, I wonder if they are true ^^
The most popular is a fear of number 13...I love this number and Friday 13th is always lucky(black cats too :).
Fear of cheese and yellow color seem to be crazy.
And yeah this cool name of the fear of long words :D Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, after reading this word I think you will just hate long words :)
I feel sorry for people who are afraid of such things. How difficult it must be for them to explain to someone why, for instance: they can not eat pizza or why they panic when they have to read a longer word.
I wonder what percentage of humanity suffers from similar phobias?
But jokes aside, it's a pretty interesting article. I've never heard of the fear of yellow (sounds ridiculous) or peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth. The latter one is probably unpleasant, but I didn't expect people to make a separate phobia just for that. And the name for fear of long words is ironic indeed. To be honest, it would be really interesting to meet a person suffering from one of these phobias.
Because how can you explain it? For French people European Union classified slime as a fish - just to allow them to get money. I believe that so called 'doctors' could do the same thing - pay people to say that they're scared of number 13, to present their 'fobias' to investors and get funding to conduct researches. Well, every way to get your american dream is fine, well... almost every way :)
FYI there are also many weird phobias like Pogonophobia (fear the beard) or the most disturbing: phobophobia (fear against.. fear). If anyones interested: http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinabarca/weird-phobias-that-you-may-not-even-know-you-have#.dvLebkkq1