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old hand
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old hand
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Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
I came across it on a FunTrivia quiz, but had never seen it before, and guessed wrongly, to boot! Which part is the "long word" part?!?!? :0)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sesquipedali- It means foot and a half, referring to the length of the word as written.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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HippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobiaHmm, oughtn't it to be hippopotomomonstrosesquipedaliphobia? And then some peevologists might complain that it mixes Latin and Hellenic, a must-never-do-ism. I guess you could replace monstro with terato, but I am at a loss on what to do with sesquipedali. Hmm. Just one minute. ICLIU (link ημιολιασμος (hēmioliasmos) is the same as Latin sesqui 'one and a half'. And, I guess, podali for the foot part. (Latin sesquipedalis means 'foot and a half (long)' but doesn't really work without words. So, verbo or lexico needs to go in there. So, how about hippopotomoteratohemioliasmopodalilexicophobia? Or in English fear of river-horse-monster-foot-and-a-half-(long)-words.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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old hand
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old hand
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Scared of big things with sequi feet?
Sorry, I have no eye deer.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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No cheating, fear of long words I believe. Certainly one of the funnier terms around. 
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veteran
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veteran
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Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
I came across it on a FunTrivia quiz, but had never seen it before, and guessed wrongly, to boot! Which part is the "long word" part?!?!? :0) I think fear of long words might be just sesquipedaliophobia . But I don't see what "monster river horse" adds to it - a fear of verbose giant hippos? Fear of abnormally long-winded hippos?
Last edited by TheFallibleFiend; 08/06/2008 7:14 PM.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
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Well, it is both of them. Mine might be slightly misspelt in the middle somewhere (it was copy/pasted), but I saw both of them in looking it up. It just seemed so strange with the "hippo" thing starting it off! I was sure it had something to do with horses. I'd never seen it before, and wondered if anyone else had. :0)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>slightly misspelt in the middle somewhere well, yeah! what's that second pp doing there, anyways -- to make the word even longer?! fwiw, hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia - joe (not one of my fears!) friday
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