Unusual words about literature every book-lover needs to know
Previously we’ve considered some essential words book-lovers should know; one of the book-words we coined, bibliosmia, has even found its way into other corners of the internet, albeit in a small way. (See also this Amazon discussion about the word and the phenomenon it describes; it also appears to have become a semi-popular hashtag on picture-sharing sites.) Since we came up with ‘bibliosmia’, anyway, we’ve uncovered lots of other weird and wonderful words relating to writing, reading, and other book-related activities and experiences. Here are ten of our favourites.
Alogotransiphobia denotes the fear of being caught on public transport with nothing to read.
Hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is a fear of long words. (We’ve compiled some of our favourite long words in literature here.)
Erotographomania denotes an abnormal interest in erotic literature.
Bibliokleptomania is the abnormal desire to steal books.
Typomania denotes a mania for writing for publication.
Metromania denotes the compulsion to write poetry.
Phronemophobia is a fear of thinking.
Sophophobia is a fear of learning.
Bibliophobia is a fear of books. (Can such a thing exist? Apparently so – it’s related to a desire for censorship and book-burning – or bibliocaust.)
And since ‘bibliomania’ is a mania for books and ‘oniomania’ denotes a mania for buying things, we’ll leave you with our own suggestion, denoting ‘a mania for buying books’: biblioniomania. Though whether that one will take off in quite the same way as bibliosmia, we’re not sure. Our previous attempt to coin a word, ambibibliopropria (being unable to remember, when browsing in a second-hand bookshop, whether or not you already own a particular book), hasn’t exactly flown into the Urban Dictionary yet…
For more wonderful words, have a look at some of our favourite word-related facts and our 15 great neologisms for modern phenomena and experiences.
Image: Couple reading books (picture credit: Erin Kelly on Flickr).