Hippopotmonstrosesquipedaliophobia

I confess!  I am a hippopotmostrosequipedaliophobe.  Long words scare me.  This morning I was reading an article in the Guardian and I had to look up two words.  Two words!  In the Guardian.  The Guardian was never the Times.  It was the paper for thinking idiots - like me. They spelt words wrong, hence their nickname; the Grundian.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/offence-satirical-piece-penis-management?CMP=twt_gu

The article was a response to Suzanne Moore's piece called, '10 Rules for Good Penis Management.'  It was a funny list, written in response to Peter Dowling (An Australian MP) taking a picture of his willy dunked in a glass of wine on his mobile phone and sending it to someone.  This 'news' coincided with the fire brigade reminding men not to put their penis into a toaster.  A&E is constantly full of men who think they will derive pleasure from putting it somewhere, where any sane person knows it's only going to get hurt.  Yesterday, Twitter was ablaze with the news that a man had stuck a fork in his.  Suzanne Moore is probably to the Guardian what Samantha Brick is to the Daily Mail.  She's not afraid to say things that people might not agree with but unlike the most beautiful woman in the world she writes about other things that are a bit more serious and less contentious.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/07/10-rules-managing-penis-sexting-wine-toaster

There were 37 complaints to her article.  I don't think that's many but it was enough for the Guardian to ask someone else to write a story about the complaints and defend the fact that the article was written.  Suzanne Moore posted the article with a one word response - "cock" - and that is the kind of language I understand.  It's how I want to read insults but the people who had complained about her article had used words I needed to look up to understand how offended they were.

My son loves a long word.  It was he that taught me the word hippoptmonstrosesquipedaliophobia, possibly because he has a healthy sense of irony he loves the fact that the word for fear of long words is a REALLY long word.  I wonder if using long words as insults is part of the plan.  If you use a word a person doesn't understand they can't necessarily be offended.  Depending on the self confidence of the person you could use a complicated word and they would either be offended, not bothered or flattered.  I was once highly offended that someone described me as languid.  I assumed it was an insult but now I'd be flattered, as I think of HE Bates' description of Angela Snow as languid (and she was a goddess).

As a tribute to the original article here is a list of 10 long-word-insults that you are welcome to use if you don't mind seeming like a bit of a nerd or to help you understand how you are being insulted by a Guardian reader.

1. Contumelious - as in, 'your article is contumelious and shameful.'  = rudeness or contempt arising from from insolence.
2. Flagitious - as in, 'I'm shocked at the overt flagitious homophobia' = criminal/ villainous (from the word flagrant)
3.Blowsabella - as in, 'Ms Moore is a Blowsabella who needs to comb her hair.'  = hot tempered slovenly woman
4. Fimicolus - as in, 'Ms Moore is fimicolus.' = living and growing on crap
5. Hircismus - as in, 'Ms Moore, as a feminist who probably doesn't shave her armpits and therefore has hircismus = offensive armpit odour.
6. Stetopygous - as in, ' you are stetopygous.' = fat arsed
7.Eproctolagniac - as in, ' you are an sproctolagniac' = someone who is aroused by flatulence
8. Cacafuago - as in, ' by using these long words you are a cacafuago.' = boaster/bragger (literally Spanish for Shitfire)
9. Gasconader - as in, 'if you are not a cacfuago you are definitely a Gasconader.' = boaster who constantly relives old triumphs
10. Aeolist - as in, 'if you keep using these long words I will have to conclude that you really are an aeolist.' = a pompous bore who pretends to be inspired.