Phobe

[Jonathan Lighter]

As a slangy synonym for "homophobe," this has been around since at least 1989.  A dozen years ago, according to Net, there were T-shirts asking "Friend or Phobe ?"

  1. Did anyone hear, or better yet use, "phobe" before 1989 ?

  2. Has it (yet) been applied to other "phobics," i.e. xenophobes, "commitment-phobes," etc.

  JL


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