A LITTLE ESSAY ON PHOBIAS

I looked up 'fear of geese' on one of those lists-of-phobias websites. They're extraordinary lists, those - you wouldn't believe the kind of things that there are to be afraid of out there. For example, petsetaphobia is apparently the fear of towels. Who's afraid of towels? Then there's linonophobia, the terrible fear of string. And what about anatidaephobia, the strange feeling that somewhere you're being watched by a duck.

I've got to be honest, I think someone's making these up. Someone with a bit of a thing for greek prefixes has simply invented a whole set of fears by shunting a 'phobia' on the end of each one. The fastest way to create something like that is to give it a label. And sometimes they haven't even bothered with the greek! As I scrolled down, I noted that in the Y section, some wisecracker had entered:

Ynotophobia: the fear of life having not been worth living

and I wondered whether the whole thing might be a bit of wind-up.

I did a quick Ctrl+F anyway and searched for geese. I found it. The fear of geese is apparently, chinaphobia, not to be confused with chionophobia (fear of snow) or sinophobia which is a deep-seated resentment of Chinese people. Now I love snow and I've got nothing against the Chinese. As Father Ted once said, they're 'a great bunch of lads' and (despite my sister once dreaming that she was imprisoned in a Chinese detention camp) I'm not really all that terrified of them. Plus, I really like paper, gunpowder, compasses and tea.

There must come a point when these phobia names become completely pointless. I reckon most people would understand arachnophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia and maybe hydrophobia*, but beyond that - isn't it just easier to say you have a fear of whatever it is? In fact, I notice with interest that the spellchecker hasn't picked up any of those four phobias but is currently making suggestions for all of the others I've mentioned so far. Therein lies the tale.

So in case you're wondering, I do still have the fear of geese (also note how chinophobia has two more syllables in it and is actually less descriptive than 'fear of geese') and they do freak me out a little bit. It's their little beady eyes and reptilian legs, strutting about like miniature fluffy dinosaurs, ready to pounce, raptor-like upon their unsuspecting victims. It's them and cows. But I'll leave an in-depth discussion of bovinaphobia for another day.

I have got to stop looking up stuff on the Internet.



*Whatever you do, don't leave these people in a tiny outdoor swimming pool filled with spiders.