Can you spell that for me?

Telegraph:

It is enough to give someone an irrational fear of long and faintly improbable-sounding words.

In fact according to an exhaustive list of unusual phobias the fear of long words already exists and has a name.

A catalogue of fears unearthed by New Scientist magazine, claims sufferers have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, or sesquippedaliophobia for short, which describes “a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of long words”.

The list of hundreds of unlikely irrational fears, which can leave their sufferers with shortness of breath, rapid breathing, an irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread was taken from a US counselling website.

Among the bizarre crippling dreads listed on changethatsrightnow.com are the ridiculous sounding zemmiphobia, or fear of the great mole rat, and alektorophobia, or a fear of chickens.

Those with lutraphobia fear otters, those with globophobia fear balloons and those with pteronophobia fear of being tickled by feathers.

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I am afraid I can't spell most of those phobias, but I think that is a totally rational reaction. My heartbeat is normal. I am not sweating. I actually feel fine as long as there are no infidelophobes around.