Fear, along with death, is one of the great equalizers of human existence. Everyone is afraid of something, just as everybody is eventually going to die, which puts everyone on a level footing. However, the same can’t be said for someone who has to endure a phobia, fear is less of an equalizer and more of an inhibitor, taking away a person’s ability to function. For some people, their phobia is perfectly reasonable and may appear to be little more than a magnified manifestation of a natural fear. Examples of this can include a phobia that is directed towards snakes, or other similarly dangerous natural occurrences and creatures. However, some people can suffer from a phobia that is utterly ridiculous, by most standards.
One of the more unusual fears out there is hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, which is the fear of long words. There is a certain degree of irony involved in having an unusually long word represent the fear of long words. As with any other phobia, the trigger causes an unnaturally strong fear response in the person. In most cases, people with this problem will actively go out of their way to avoid reading anything that might contain a long...