Talk:althaiophobia

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Latest comment: 6 years ago by Kiwima in topic RFV discussion: August–October 2017
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RFV discussion: August–October 2017

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Fear of marshmallows (which are, to be fair, pretty terrifying). Appears in a few word lists; little or no actual usage. Equinox 22:34, 30 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Shades of ghostbusters! I can find a few mentions, but no actual usages. Kiwima (talk) 22:49, 30 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

I found usages here, some going back a decade or so. -- parallelpiped (talk):

I would consider all of those except the first one to be mentions. Kiwima (talk) 20:16, 31 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

Etymologically, it makes no sense: it should be the fear of a mallow that grows in marshes, Althaea officinalis (note the name of the genus). When you boil or juice the plant, you get a mucilaginous substance very similar to egg whites, which was supposed to coat your insides and protect you from all manner of bad things. Not too many centuries ago, someone got the bright idea of adding sugar and whipping this disgusting slime that people were taking every day into what we now know as marshmallows. Only thing is, modern marshmallows use actual egg whites and contain no marsh mallow at all.
Of course, many phobia words are coined by people who know nothing about Latin or Greek (or plants, for that matter), so someone probably looked in the English-to-Greek section of some dictionary and assumed a marsh mallow was the same thing as a marshmallow.
That doesn't have anything to do with CFI, but I thought some might find it interesting (by the way, hibiscus comes from an Ancient Greek name for the same plant).Chuck Entz (talk) 01:43, 1 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 22:40, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply