Query failed: connection to localhost:9312 failed (errno=111, msg=Connection refused). Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: Fear of long words - Off Topic Discussions on The Fretboard
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UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: Fear of long words

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Placidcasual79Placidcasual79 Frets: 896
in Off Topic
Just found out about this - ironic......
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  • BrioBrio Frets: 1499
    No, just sad.

    "This 35-letter, 15-syllable word contains the root sesquipedalian, which means "long word." Therefore, it is sometimes called sesquipedalophobia. However, somewhere along the line, references to the hippopotamus and monsters were added, making it sound even more intimidating."
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  • GoFishGoFish Frets: 1082
    Like the ol' floccinaucinihilipilification, a bit of a sad in-joke that sort of took on a life of it's own.

    "Back in the eighteenth century, Eton College had a grammar book which listed a set of words from Latin which all meant something of little or no value. In order, those were flocci, nauci, nihili, and pili...
    ...

    As a learned joke, somebody put all four of these together and then stuck –fication on the end to make a noun for the act of deciding that something is totally and utterly valueless (a verb, floccinaucinihilipilificate, to judge a thing to be valueless, ccan also be constructed, but hardly anybody ever does). The first recorded use is by William Shenstone in a letter in 1741: “I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money”.

    A quick Latin lesson: flocci is derived from floccus, literally a tuft of wool and the source of English words like flocculate, but figuratively in Latin something trivial; pili is likewise the plural of pilus, a hair, which we have inherited in words like depilatory, but which in Latin could mean a whit, jot, trifle or generally a thing that is insignificant; nihili is from nihil, nothing, as in words like nihilism and annihilate; nauci just means worthless."



    Ten years too late and still getting it wrong
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  • PoboyPoboy Frets: 430
    Sesquipedalian.
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  • Emp_FabEmp_Fab Frets: 23224
    edited October 2023
    Never mind that, what's the German word for the feeling you get when discussing Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia while laying in bed worrying about being late for work.
    Humans are destructive parasites that will destroy the celestial oasis of Earth.  The sooner Homo Sapiens are extinct, the better.
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  • hywelghywelg Frets: 4255
    The word should be makrilexophobia. 

    Yes I just made that up but it is easier to say and remember. Being as Phobia is Greek I added the Greek words for long and word. 
    Feedback Thread

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  • beed84beed84 Frets: 2295
    You’d hope there’s a shorter version as that seems like the wrong word to diagnose someone with.
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  • BrioBrio Frets: 1499
    You do have to wonder who gets to create these long words and make them 'official'.
    Also who decides when it's things like national "get your car washed" day/week.
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  • BrioBrio Frets: 1499
    And as I fall further down the rabbit hole I find this little source of the root word


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  • axisusaxisus Frets: 27656
    Fear of Hippos - Longwordspotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia?

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