Aibohphobia

Read the word backwards: a-i-b-o-h-p-h-o-b-i-a. It’s the same word. That’s the whole joke.

Aibohphobia is a made-up word for the fear of palindromes. A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same in both directions, like “kayak,” “level,” or “racecar.” Someone took the word “phobia,” flipped it, and stuck the two halves together, so the name for the fear is itself the thing being feared. Wiktionary labels it humorous and a nonce word, which means it was coined for fun rather than for real use. Wiktionary: aibohphobia

No doctor diagnoses aibohphobia, and nobody has studied it, because it was never meant to describe a real fear. Wikipedia files it under “jocular and fictional phobias,” next to the fear that a duck is watching you. Wikipedia: List of phobias

How do you say aibohphobia?

Say it eye-boh-FOH-bee-uh. Wiktionary describes it as the suffix “-phobia” joined to its own reversed spelling. Wiktionary: aibohphobia In practice, the first part, “aiboh,” is “phobia” backwards, minus the “p” that the two halves share in the middle.

People often type it as “aibophobia,” with one “h.” That version isn’t a palindrome. If you reverse it you get “aibohpobia,” so the extra “h” is doing real work.

Where did the word come from?

There are two origin stories, and both point to the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Wiktionary traces the earliest known use to a newspaper word game. A columnist named J. Baxter Newgate ran a “National Challenge” asking readers to invent a phobia, and aibohphobia showed up as an answer. The source given is the Orlando Sentinel of October 22, 1977. The column didn’t name the reader who sent it in. Wiktionary: aibohphobia

Wikipedia credits a different early home: The Devil’s DP Dictionary, a 1981 book of computer humor by Stan Kelly-Bootle, later reissued as The Computer Contradictionary. Wikipedia: List of phobias

After that, the word kept turning up wherever people enjoy wordplay. Wiktionary’s examples include a 1983 issue of Science Digest, a 1997 book of word games by Richard Lederer, and a 2006 column in New Scientist. Wiktionary: aibohphobia It even has a matching opposite, ailihphilia, a love of palindromes, built the same way from “philia.”

What counts as a palindrome?

The word palindrome is older than you might guess. The English poet Henry Peacham introduced it in 1638, building it from Greek roots meaning “again” and “way” or “direction.” Wikipedia: Palindrome

Palindromes come in a few kinds:

• single words, such as “civic,” “radar,” “madam,” and “deified”
• names, such as Hannah, Anna, Bob, and Otto, and the band name ABBA
• phrases and sentences, such as “Never odd or even” and “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama,” first published in 1948
• numbers and dates, such as 12321 or the date 22/02/2022

The longest palindrome in English, according to Wikipedia, is “tattarrattat,” a 12-letter word James Joyce used in Ulysses. The Finnish word “saippuakivikauppias,” meaning a soapstone seller, runs to 19 letters. Wikipedia: Palindrome

People have been making them for a very long time. A Latin word square found scratched on a wall at Pompeii, the Sator Square, reads the same in four directions. Wikipedia: Palindrome

Why is the joke funny?

Most phobia names work the same way: a Greek or Latin word for the feared thing, plus “-phobia.” Joke names copy that pattern and point it at something silly. Aibohphobia goes one step further. The name traps the person who has the fear, because they can’t even say the name of their condition without meeting the thing they dread.

It belongs to a small family of self-mocking words. The best known is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, the fear of long words, which is itself 35 letters long. Another is hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, the fear of the number 666, a 29-letter name for a three-digit number. Aibohphobia is shorter than both and arguably neater.

Can someone really be afraid of palindromes?

We couldn’t find any case report, survey, or study of anyone with a fear of palindromes. The word was built as a puzzle, and that’s how people use it.

That said, a few real experiences can sit near it:

• Some people feel uneasy around symmetry or “perfect” patterns, and others feel driven to check or arrange things until they look right. If that urge is strong and hard to stop, it’s worth raising with a doctor, since it can be part of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) rather than a phobia.
• Some people have a strong superstition about certain numbers, and a few numbers they avoid happen to be palindromes. Our pages on triskaidekaphobia and arithmophobia cover number fears.
• Some people dread reading aloud and stumbling over odd words, which overlaps with glossophobia, the fear of public speaking.

A clinician would focus on what actually happens to you, not on the label. A specific phobia is a marked, lasting fear of a particular object or situation that’s out of proportion to the danger and leads to avoidance or strong distress. APA Dictionary of Psychology

A made-up example

Imagine a teenager who loves word puzzles. She tells her friends she has aibohphobia, and they spend lunch trying to sneak “racecar” and “Hannah” into every sentence to make her groan. Nobody is scared. Everyone is having fun. That’s how the word gets used almost everywhere.

Now imagine a different person who gets a rush of dread whenever things look perfectly even, and who spends an hour each night straightening objects until the feeling eases. That second person isn’t describing aibohphobia at all, even if a joke list online makes it sound similar. What’s happening to them deserves a real conversation with a doctor.

Fear or phobia?

Groaning at a pun isn’t a fear. A phobia means the fear shows up nearly every time, is far stronger than the danger, leads you to avoid things, and gets in the way of daily life, usually for six months or more. NHS: Phobias Our fear versus phobia guide explains the difference in more detail.

What can help if a word or pattern fear is real?

If something like this is genuinely troubling you, the help on offer is the same as for other phobias and anxiety problems. Talking therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are a common treatment for phobias, and a doctor can point you toward one. NHS: Phobias If the problem looks more like checking or arranging, a doctor can talk with you about OCD and how it’s treated. Our guide to how specific phobias are treated explains what therapy can involve.

If a friend jokes that they have it

Play along, if they’re clearly enjoying it. Palindrome games are an old pastime, and aibohphobia is mostly an invitation to show off. If a friend seems truly upset by patterns, numbers, or words, though, drop the joke and ask how they’re doing. Our guide on supporting someone with a phobia has ideas for that kind of conversation.

For more names like this one, see our guide to the strangest named phobias.