A phobia is an exaggerated, persistent, and overpowering fear of ... well, just about anything. From knees to vegetables to otters, the subjects of these intense fears are irrational by definition. Their names, however, are quite rational; most are derived from Greek or Latin. So, dust off that classics dictionary and find out just how much you know about fear.

Most of the people in the world have a fear of one kind or another.  There are also some less popular phobias.  At the end of this
                  essay, I have compiled a list of the phobias that I find amusing.

        There are many people in the world that suffer
                  from polyphobia, which simply means to have more than one fear.  Not so common,
                  people may suffer from antinomial phobias. For example, there are some people that live with and.  Another example is people with) and photophobia (fear of light).

        Watch out guys, within the next seven
                  years, you will probably get married and you will suffer from pentheraphobia, which is one of the scariest phobias in existence,
                  the fear of your mother-in-law!

       
                  Not all phobias have been in existence for thousands of years.  I’m
                  sure that brontophobia (fear of thunder and lightning), febriphobia (fear of fever), and ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) have
                  existed since the Black Ages.  Some of the phobias that have formed in the last
                  two centuries would be electrophobia (fear of electricity), motorphobia (fear of automobiles), and aviophobia (fear of flying).  In 1945, a brand new phobia was quickly created and escalated drastically in the 1950’s.  It is called nucleomituphobia, which is the fear or nuclear weapons.  But that’s not the newest phobia in existence as of today. 
                  This threat is called cyberphobia (fear of computers).  In mild cases,
                  people may be afraid to use a computer or an ATM.  In today’s society, technology
                  is deeply integrated.  Computers are used in calculators, cars, microwaves, power
                  tools, and many more.  So to the cyberphobic, I say, “Get over it, or go
                  to the extreme and move away from the city, abandon your car, hand build your home, hand pump your water, build your fires,
                  and hunt for your own food!”

        If you have a phobia, there is still
                  hope for you.  Phobias can be cured.  Remember
                  when you were a child and suffered from clinophobia (fear of going to bed) because of bogyphobia (fear of the bogeyman), achluophobia
                  (fear of darkness), and lachanophobia (fear of vegetables).  Now chances are good
                  that you go to bed without checking your closet or looking under your bed, that you don’t go ballistic if the lights
                  go out, and that you eat a salad every so often.

            Phobias can deeply impact a person’s life.  A person with chronophobia (fear of time) probably won’t make it to their 10:00AM dentist appointment on time.  A person with chaetophobia (fear of hair) is most likely bald, has no eyelashes, no eyebrows, etc.  A person with cibophobia (fear of food) usually hasn’t eaten in weeks and could easily be anorexic.  This proves how serious and destructive phobias can be.  If you do suffer from any strange phobias, I would suggest calling one-eight-hundred-phobias, for arithmophobics (people who fear numbers) or for logophobics (people who fear words).

It was a much shorter list then.  It's grown because of the interest and help of many people.  I want to thank everyone that has helped or tried to help with the tending of the list.  Without them this would be a mostly blank page.  Thank you all.