If you've been following my Instagram or my blog posting from last time, you probably remember that I was heading to Oregon and also Olympic National Park. Our trip was beautiful, especially being surrounded by so much greenery. The weather, however, was another story - cold and windy. It was definitely not beach weather.
Olympic National Park was stunning and breathtaking (take a peek at a previous lesson on "breathtaking" here). As we got to the top of the mountain I was suddenly overwhelmed by this fear of falling off the mountain. I could not look down and my legs suddenly felt very weak. I quickly took a few pictures and ran back to the car. I've never been afraid of heights, so this was pretty strange to me. A few days later, I was in an elevator alone and all of a sudden it stopped on the 14th floor. All the lights started flickering for a few seconds and would not move! I tried pressing every single button and it would not respond. My cell phone also had no signal in the elevator. You can imagine that after my experience on the mountain, this really made me panic as all I could think about was the elevator falling all the way down! Luckily, after a few minutes, it started working again. I walked out, breathed a sigh of relief and vowed to never take an elevator again. But of course, this would not be possible as I I need to use the elevator to get home every day.
Someone who is afraid of heights is known as having acrophobia (pronounced as: ak-ruh-FO-bee-uh). For some who suffer from extreme acrophobia, it could cause shortness of breath, panic attacks, rapid breathing, nausea, vomiting, sweating, dizziness. It's definitely not a pleasant condition to have. They also avoid any activity that involves heights such as, flying, going on a Ferris wheel, skydiving, using an elevator, or even something simple like climbing a ladder.
Let's break down the word.
Acro- is a prefix (added to the beginning of a word) from the Greek term "acron" meaning height or high point . You may know "-phobia" as a common suffix (added to the end of a word) meaning fear. It's from the Greek work "phobos." There are lots of words in the English language ending with "-phobia" depending what your fear is. For example, the word "clinophobia" is a fear of going to bed. There's basically a phobia for everything you can think of.
Tomorrow I'll present a few more interesting phobias and words with this suffix, so don't forget to check back!
Do you have a phobia of any kind?
Someone who is afraid of heights is known as having acrophobia (pronounced as: ak-ruh-FO-bee-uh). For some who suffer from extreme acrophobia, it could cause shortness of breath, panic attacks, rapid breathing, nausea, vomiting, sweating, dizziness. It's definitely not a pleasant condition to have. They also avoid any activity that involves heights such as, flying, going on a Ferris wheel, skydiving, using an elevator, or even something simple like climbing a ladder.
Let's break down the word.
Acro- is a prefix (added to the beginning of a word) from the Greek term "acron" meaning height or high point . You may know "-phobia" as a common suffix (added to the end of a word) meaning fear. It's from the Greek work "phobos." There are lots of words in the English language ending with "-phobia" depending what your fear is. For example, the word "clinophobia" is a fear of going to bed. There's basically a phobia for everything you can think of.
Tomorrow I'll present a few more interesting phobias and words with this suffix, so don't forget to check back!
Do you have a phobia of any kind?
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