--- title: "[OT] What are you afraid of?" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/26/ot-what-are-you-afraid-of.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/26/ot-what-are-you-afraid-of.html" published: "2005-06-26T07:14:00" updated: "2005-06-26T07:14:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "This is scary. How many phobias(chronic fears) do you think there are? Take a look at the ultimate phobia list and count them. I didn't see a fear of large lists of fears though. Some may sound eerily familiar from work…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # \[OT\] What are you afraid of? By Roy Osherove June 26, 2005 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published June 26, 2005; technical details may be outdated. [This is scary.](http://www.phobialist.com/) How many phobias(chronic fears) do you think there are? Take a look at [the ultimate phobia list](http://www.phobialist.com/) and count them. I didn't see a fear of large lists of fears though. **Some may sound eerily familiar from work**: Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions. Atychiphobia- Fear of failure. Autodysomophobia- Fear of one that has a vile odor. Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions. Caligynephobia- Fear of beautiful women. Bibliophobia- Fear of books Cenophobia or Centophobia- Fear of new things or ideas. Coitophobia- Fear of coitus. Decidophobia- Fear of making decisions. Doxophobia- Fear of expressing opinions or of receiving praise. Enosiophobia or Enissophobia- Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism. Ergophobia- Fear of work. Geliophobia- Fear of laughter. Glossophobia- Fear of speaking in public or of trying to speak. Gnosiophobia- Fear of knowledge. Heresyphobia or Hereiophobia- Fear of challenges to official doctrine or of radical deviation. Hypengyophobia or Hypegiaphobia- Fear of responsibility. Ideophobia- Fear of ideas. Linonophobia- Fear of string. (_pun intended :-)_ ) Kakorrhaphiophobia- Fear of failure or defeat. Logizomechanophobia- Fear of computers. Mechanophobia- Fear of machines. Metathesiophobia- Fear of changes. Phronemophobia- Fear of thinking. Ponophobia- Fear of overworking or of pain. Prosophobia- Fear of progress. **And some are utterly weird:** Ambulophobia- Fear of walking. Anglophobia- Fear of England or English culture, etc. Atomosophobia- Fear of atomic explosions. Ballistophobia- Fear of missiles or bullets. Bolshephobia- Fear of Bolsheviks. Barophobia- Fear of gravity. Dextrophobia- Fear of objects at the right side of the body. Ephebiphobia- Fear of teenagers. Francophobia- Fear of France or French culture. (Gallophobia, Galiophobia) Geniophobia- Fear of chins. Helminthophobia- Fear of being infested with worms. Nomatophobia- Fear of names. Ouranophobia or Uranophobia- Fear of heaven. Paraskavedekatriaphobia- Fear of Friday the 13th. (??!!) _Phobophobia- Fear of phobias.(aha!)_ Pteronophobia- Fear of being tickled by feathers. Sophophobia- Fear of learning. Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jun 30, 2005 ### [Who's reading me?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/30/whos-reading-me.html) - Jun 26, 2005 ### [The ultimate gamer keyboard?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/26/the-ultimate-gamer-keyboard.html) - Jun 22, 2005 ### [Evil code in disguise](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/22/evil-code-in-disguise.html) - Jun 22, 2005 ### [My Session schedule at Tech-Ed Europe](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/22/my-session-schedule-at-tech-ed-europe.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/