In the classic holiday TV show “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Lucy Van Pelt (sitting behind her “5-cent psychiatrist” kiosk) suggests that Charlie Brown (the patient) might have “pantaphobia.” Once Lucy explains that pantaphobia is “fear of everything”, he enthusiastically agrees. At least with as much enthusiasm as Charlie Brown ever musters.
However, astonishing as it may be in a cartoon originally made for kids, that’s not what “pantaphobia” means. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of the real meaning; “pantaphobia” means that you aren’t afraid of anything. In other words, it’s the complete absence of fear. It used to be in occasional use with that meaning, but since the end of the 1800s it’s been pretty much obsolete. Other than, of course, humorous usage as its own opposite.
It’s a common practice in English to use the suffix “-phobia” to indicate “fear of”. Since “-phobia” is an unusual English construction (because it’s Greek), it’s pretty obvious to everyone, so it gets casually used to construct new phobias. For every legitimate medical diagnosis like “acrophobia” (fear of heights), it seems like there’s another one that seems just on the edge of humor, even though some people might really be afflicted.
Take, for example, “coulrophobia”. It comes from another Greek word, “kolon”, which means “limb” as in leg. The best clue to what “coulrophobia” is comes from another Greek word: “kolobathristes”. Who walks on stilts, particularly at a circus? Clowns. “Coulrophobia” is the fear of clowns.
Clowns have been around for a long time. Some people trace them back to “pantomimes” who performed in ancient Greece, and/or to court jesters from the Middle Ages in Europe (as an aside, “europhobia” is the fear of Europe). Even though the condition may have existed just as long, “coulrophobia” as a word is pretty recent. It seems to have been coined sometime in the 1980s, although nobody has taken credit for it. Maybe the originator suffers from “neologophobia” — the fear of new words.
