When it comes to common fears, snakes, heights and confined spaces seem to grab all the headlines. But there are hundreds of other phobias we struggle from, including some you may never have heard of:

1.  Chionophobia: February 13, 2010 must have been a particularly bad day for Americans suffering from Chionophobia – a fear of snow. On that day, 49 out of 50 states had snow on the ground. The holdout? Hawaii.

2.  Coulrophobia: Finally! A proper name for our fear of clowns. Coulrophobia often originates with an early childhood experience that’s, well, not very funny.

3.  Phronemophobia: This could win the award for being the world’s most difficult phobia to treat -- the fear of thinking.

4.  Telephonophobia: No word on whether this phobia – a fear of telephones – extends to text messages.

5.  Geniophobia: We were certain this referred to a fear of genies, but the only genies that could scare a Geniophobe would be those with … chins.

Assuming that you don’t suffer from Sesquipedalophobia (fear of long words), we’d like to hear about other unusual phobias you know about. Please use the comment section below to add to our list.

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