National Grammar Day Loves and Fears

Image by Manuel do Moucheiro from Pixabay

March 4 was National Grammar Day…really!!! But of course we can celebrate for the whole week, so let’s.

What do we call a person who loves grammar? Well, we can stretch the language a little and call that person a grammarphile,  the suffix -phile meaning a lover of something.  Related loves include linguaphile, someone who loves language and words, or logophile, a lover of words. 

But what about someone who fears grammar? Is there a word for that? Of course. There is a word for most fears, even the most rare and weird. Some of these words you will find in the dictionary. Others are in more colloquial dictionaries or not in the dictionary at all.

Atelophobia – The fear of grammar. Maybe “fear” is going a little too far; grammar anxiety might be more fitting. 

Here are a few more related fears:

Ortographobia – The fear of misspelling words. (Ortography is the correct spelling of words.)

Dysgrammatophobia – The fear of producing bad grammar.

Virguphobia – Fear of commas. (I wouldn’t lie to you.)

Pistaphobia – Fear of periods. Sometimes used to represent the fear of all punctuation.

Erotimatikophobia – Nope. Nothing to do with erotica. It is the fear of question marks.

Image by Alexandra A life without animals is not worth living from Pixabay

Here are several more fears related to grammar and writing:

Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions.

Bibliophobia- Fear of books. (Bibliophile is a lover of books.)

Epistemophobia- Fear of knowledge.

Graphophobia- Fear of writing or handwriting.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia- Fear of long words. (I kid you not.)

Logophobia- Fear of words.

Metrophobia- Fear or hatred of poetry.

Onomatophobia- Fear of hearing a certain word or of names.

Scolionophobia- Fear of school.

Sophophobia- Fear of learning.

Symbolophobia- Fear of symbolism.

Verbophobia- Fear of words. (Ands not just verbs)

National Grammar Day,  March 4, was established in 2008 by Martha Brockenbrough,  She is the founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG).  She established the day to excite her students about grammar. President Bush sent a letter comemmorating the day. And yes, there is a National Punctuation Day, which is celebrated on September 24.

Asking for Help: I would love to do another Grammar and Punctuation Pet Peeves post. Please send your pet peeve(s) to me in an e-mail to bigwords101@yahoo.com. PLEASE do not send them as a comment to this post. They will not be printed as a comment. Thank you!!