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Mind your language

Coulrophobia

26 November 2016

9:00 AM

26 November 2016

9:00 AM

There’s something suspicious about the name for a fear of clowns which was on the shortlist of words of the year compiled by Oxford Dictionaries. This phobia, coulrophobia, oddly enough illustrates the meaning of Oxford’s eventual chosen winner: post-truth. Post-truth applies to a circumstance ‘in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion’.

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