LOL, can you imagine having that and living in the Amazon rainforest? I wonder if there is a fear of sand and if any Bedouins suffer it?
I imagine that would be quite difficult yes.... hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. A fear of long words.
"Sequipedaliophobia" (with an O, not an A) is recognized in formal writing even though it hasn't made it into any respectable dictionary yet. "Sesquipedalian" means "given to using long words" or "[a word] of many syllables," from Latin sesquipedalis, "a foot and a half." (Compare "sesquicentennial," a 150th anniversary.) Adding the part about the hippos and the monsters is just a cutesy-poo way of making the word longer. Apparently some people double the second P, just to get one more letter into it. This elongated version of the word has shown up in print often enough that you can Google it, but it's generally disparaged. "Sesquipedalian" is a sesquipedalian word. That means it belongs to the very small class of self-defining words like "short." I thought there was a name for that kind of word, but the only one I can find is "recursive." I suppose that's good enough.
Contrifibularities, spasmotic, compunctuous, periconbobulations, interfrastically... ...these are the common words, down our way.
There's also "autological" from "autos" (self) and "logos" (word). It can be used of words or phrases. "This sentence contains five words," would be an autological phrase.
I really have a hard time believing that..."spasmotic" maybe is a common word but the rest, no way are they used anywhere close to on regular basis.
It's spelled "spasmodic," not "spasmotic." That one is a real word, although it's hardly a common one. The rest of those aren't real. They may be regional slang words, but from such a small region that they're not in the dictionary. I suspect they don't show up in print very much, since the first one would surely be spelled "contra-" rather than "contri-", and the fourth one would surely be "pericombobulations," modeled after "discombobulate." The primary source of words for dictionaries is, obviously, writing. Spoken words have a much harder time gaining acceptance. If you're not just pulling our leg, they're probably humorous coinages exactly like "discombobulate," made-up words that almost look real and sound funny. Some of them eventually make it into the language, like "rambunctious" and "humongous." Others are forgotten, like "absquatulate," "to sneak away by not attracting attention."
