an apostrophe up the colon could be very painful, especially if the hook on it were to be set. Unless of course you are referring to the colon as in (:) which of course would slide rather easily being rounded. but the usage of the colon is now restricted to indicate the eyes in emoticons as in (:> )

Hey, Buck?

YOMANK!

So your name was buck:teacher? -- [he asked, innocently.]

: f:nd m:self wondering: does this impl: that you had colon-replacement surgery?

Colon replacement surgery? Not often done (I have never seen it, though it may exist in peds), though, thankfully, there is a lot of colon to go around.....
Now, as to linguistic colons and semicolons, that's a different story. I use them far too much, I think, and I know I use parentheses too much. As with apostophes, they also should be used with moderation.

okay heve we had the most heard of ones like


arachnophobia - fear of spiders

clostraphobia - fear of inclosed or small spaces

Good ones, blues! And welcome to Wordcraft!

Levophobia - fear of things on the left

macrophobia - fear of long waits

ombrophobia - fear of rain or being rained upon

maniaphobia - fear of insanity

phagophobia - fear of eating

taphephobia - fear of being buried alive

stygiophobia - fear of hell

scoprphobia - fear of being seen

oops i forgot two

lygophobia - fear of darkness

nyctophobia - fear of night

Back to the apostrophe sub-thread in this thread. Apostorphe experts: Is there an apostrophe in "your's truly"? Is it possessive?

There is no apostrophe. Words like yours, ours, its, his and hers don't take one when denoting possession.

If you were to say, "It's Tuesday today" you would be using the apostrophe to indicate a missing letter, not possession.

Thanks, arnie. As soon as I posted it, I thought I was wrong. After all, we sign letters "Yours truly" with no apostrophe.
I have to say, I have learned a lot from those of you who are also part of the apostrophe board. Just today, we had an editor speak to us about correct format for the manuscripts that we publish. She was saying that people put apostrophes erroneously all over the place--for example, "the committee's are going to meet". I thought of you.

Samhainophobia

The fear of Halloween!

Happy Halloween all!

Love it, Blues!

Take a look at last Sunday's Peanuts comic. (This link should be good until Nov. 19.)

Perhaps the word needed is filemotophobia?

Shufitz commented some time ago that there ought to be a phobia-name for men afraid of commitment.

From today's paper:

quote:

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Commitmentphobes, beware: Go easy on the bubbly. A poll by Korbel, the sparkkling wine company , determined that one-third of all engagements take place in the last three months of the year. Is it just the wine talking? Could be. If you really want to stay single, maybe just stick to coffee this New Year's Eve.

---

Quote: "Samhainophobia: The fear of Halloween!"

Seems appropriate to bring this back up today, and to alert you to the momentous discovery that the "samhain" is pronounced SOW-en, and is an Irish term meaning "end of summer".

The Catholic Church's All Saint's Day, Nov. 1, was established in an effort to draw attention away from Samhain, a/k/a Halloween.

Phasmophobia and wiccaphobia are the fears of ghosts and witches, respectively, by the way.

I was busily reseaching Halloween fears, without realizing that blues had already given us
-- lygophobia - fear of darkness
-- nyctophobia - fear of night

But the research was not unavailing , for it produced a slightly different twist from another source:
nyctophobia - an abnormal fear of the night or darkness; also called scotophobia

From Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary:

gymnophobia - fear of nudity
lallophobia - fear of speaking (no one on this forum suffers from that; they may suffer from graphospasm - writer's cramp
maieusiophobia - fear of childbirth
maniaphobia - a fear of insanity
placophobia - fear of tombstones
pluviophobia - fear of rain or of being rained upon (not in the Pacific Northwest! we're pluviophiles)
rhabdophobia - fear of being punished or severely critized
siderodromophobia - fear of train travel
sitophobia - fear of eating (not me!)
soceraphobia - fear or dislike of parents-in-law
sociophobia - fear of friendship or society
stasibasiphobia - fear of standing or walking
staurophobia - fear or dislike of the cross or crucifix
stenophobia - fear of narroiw things or places

I learned that a phobia is not just a fear, but an unreasonable fear, so I assume that "unreasonable" is assumed in these definitions. Do you agree?

Tinman

Intellectually I'd agree fully, tinman. But I misdoubt my own judgement a bit, recalling the old wittism, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you."

This spotted in the press. Can anyone help?

quote:

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An Internet reader, e-mails: "I can't seem to find a word for the fear of spontaneous human combustion. Does our columnist know it?"

No. But genuphobia is the fear of knees, if that helps.

---

How about "autopyrophobia"?

Ever notice that Morgan started this thread with amathophobia - fear of dust, and also started another thread about dust?

It seems to be an obsession common among lexicographers.
rupophobia - fear of dirt
rypophobia - fear of dirt
molysmophobia - fear of dirt
automysophobia - fear of being dirty
mysophobia - fear of contamination

Ok....I repeat myself!

Amathophobia--Fear of dust (uhh...don't come to my house if you suffer from this!)

Just hope the house guest I have arriving tomorrow doesn't suffer from this!

While I was away on vacation, I had a chance to take a look at some specialized clothing for motorcycle riding. One of the venors (BMW) offered "hydrophobic leather" riding clothing for wet weather riding! I laughed when I saw the tag, and the salesman said it just meant it was waterproof.

Sounds just like something from BMW! Funny, Morgan!

Let's not forget the other definition of hydrophobia though. I'm glad he told me it was supposed to be waterproof, not that the cows had rabies!

Hudrophobia means "fear of water" and can refer to a person who is afraid of water. Some people are afraid to go swimming in deep water; others don't like swimming at all. Some people don't like to get their heads wet. Have you ever noticed how they swim dog-paddle style to avoid putting their heads under water? Some people don't even like to get their heads wet while showering. Hydrophic people often tense up when they get in the water and I suspect that is a factor in many drownings.

Biochemically, hydrophobic refers to a substance that will not readily dissolve in water. Oils and fats are hydrophobic. That's why water beads up on a waxed surface.

When some soils and types of organic matter (such as peat moss) dry thoroughly, they become hydrophobic: that is, they resist water. When it finally rains after a dry spell, the water will bead up, just as it does on a fresly-waxed car.

OneLook lists 28 dictionaries containing hydrophobia. One of them, BioTech's life science dictionary (listed as 27: Science and Biotechnology in OneLook), gives four definitions:

1. A substance that repels or will not absorb water.
2. An organism that is harmed by water or a wet environment.
3. A person that has an irrational fear of water.
4. An animal suffering from rabies.

Tinman

The Phobia List

Tinman

I ran across this word today, and just went through all the phobias here, and it is missing:

friendorphobia - fear of forgetting the password

On this site I found 2 other words, while not phobia words, I liked them:

galeanthropy - belief that one has become a cat

castrophrenia - belief that your thoughts are being stolen by an enemy

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalleh:


_castrophrenia_ - belief that your thoughts are being stolen by an enemy

---

In the spirit of friendorphobia I offer alternative definitions for CASTROPHRENIA:

-- ...being stolen by an _offshore_island_ enemy
-- belief that your manhood is in imminent jeopardy
-- belief that you are a five-year-old child (and therefore capable of opening a convertible sofa)

Again reviving this thread....

I just saw a good one today, coulrophobia, which means fear of clowns. There are apparently a lot of people, adults as well as children, who fear clowns.