PHOBIAS

A phobia is a constant, extreme or irrational fear of an animal, object, place or situation that would not normally worry the majority of people.

Visit this website where a specialist explains the difference between a fear and a phobia. By clicking on the icons under the screen you can pull down the transcript of watch the video with subtitles. There's also a lot of information about the subject.

You have probably heard of agoraphobia, clautrophobia or arachnophobia. There are dozens of terms to designate some curious phobias which are not so widely known. I hope you don't suffer from xenoglossophobia (fear of foreign languages) or scolionophobia (fear of school) as these would make it hard for you to attend my classes. Other examples:

• caligynephobia: fear of beautiful women
• chorophobia: fear of dancing
  
• epistemophobia: fear of knowledge
• ergophobia: fear of work
• gamophobia: fear of marriage
• hippopotomonstroesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words
• mageirocophobia: fear of cooking
• oenophobia: fear of wine
• pentheraphobia: fear of mother-in-law

I found these in phobialist.com, which has a list of more than 500. You won't find an explanation of the phobias, though, as it is simply a list of names compiled by the webmaster.

One common phobia in the UK, affecting at least four million Britons, is toilet phobia. Click on the image to read a related article.

For some listening practice you can follow this link to a segment of a radio programme discussing driving phobia (sorry, no transcript). [You will probably need RealPlayer.]