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Know your phobias?

A phobia is an exaggerated, persistent, and overpowering fear of ... well, just about anything. From knees to vegetables to otters, the subjects of these intense fears are irrational by definition.

Their names, however, are quite rational; most are derived from Greek or Latin.

One Russian woman, for example, threw a cup of hot tea at one of the world's most respected artworks - the Mona Lisa - because of what's known as Stendhal Syndrome which causes confusion and irrational behaviour when the sufferer is exposed to fine art, which made her trip to the Louvre art gallery an odd choice indeed.

Dust off that classics dictionary and find out just how much you know about fear by matching the name to the phobia.

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