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Very strange question, but I'll give it a shot. Incredibly, a search for "fear of Hawaiian shirts" found this, but they didn't specifically name the phobia. Using the usual protocol of appending "phobia" to the scientific name for what is feared is tough, since there's no scientific name for "Hawaiian shirt."
The word for a fear of arachnids is easily assembled as "arachnophobia" using that protocol. But "Hawaiian-shirtophobia" doesn't really do it.
Then I discovered that, in Hawaii, these shirts are called "aloha shirts" where "aloha" is actually a Hawaiian word.
Thus, I believe the closest we could get to following the usual protocol would be "alohaphobia."
Then I did a search for "alohaphobia" which only got 8 tangential hits. So remember ... you heard it first here. Dibs on any future etymology citations.
Heimhenge said
Very strange question, but I'll give it a shot. Incredibly, a search for "fear of Hawaiian shirts" found this, but they didn't specifically name the phobia. Using the usual protocol of appending "phobia" to the scientific name for what is feared is tough, since there's no scientific name for "Hawaiian shirt."The word for a fear of arachnids is easily assembled as "arachnophobia" using that protocol. But "Hawaiian-shirtophobia" doesn't really do it.
Then I discovered that, in Hawaii, these shirts are called "aloha shirts" where "aloha" is actually a Hawaiian word.
Thus, I believe the closest we could get to following the usual protocol would be "alohaphobia."
I think you nailed it! Thanks. I found this page after searching for alohaphobia, "alohaphobia, that’s the helpless fear of Hawaiian shirts", so it sounds like they are in agreement with your conclusion.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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