“Why do you do that?” you are asked by your (check one or more if applicable: mother, father, wife, husband, friend, child, co-worker, employer, other), and you mumble some excuse, while thinking to yourself, “danged if I know.”

Sometimes naming something makes it less mysterious and therefore easier to deal with.

“Oh,” you say, “so that is just black mold (coulrophobia, Corona virus, dermatitis, assassin bug, the uncanny valley phenomenon, francophilia, the deadly ebola, extreme hoarding, northern shrew, Munchausen syndrome by proxy). What a relief! I was afraid it was something serious.”

As long as you can call something by its name, you have some power over it. It is a well-known fact-although whether it is true or not, I can’t say-that in some cultures a baby’s true name is kept secret. Everyone just calls him something informal, like Biff, or His-Ears-Stick-Out, for his whole life, thus preventing possible voodoo spells or other power-robbing assaults against his person or even his soul. Black magic works only when real, official names are used. Don’t ask me why.

“Oh, come on, you know who I mean, old His-Ears-Stick-Out!”

“No way, his real name is required in order to make him disappear.”

Magic is ineffable; it operates by its own set of rules.

Rumpelstiltskin, one of my favorite fairytale characters, simply self-destructed when the Miller’s Daughter “guessed” his name correctly.

Rumpelstiltskin, of course, knew very well that the Miller’s Daughter had cheated. Nobody could guess a name like Rumpelstiltskin. A woodcutter had overheard the dwarf talking to himself in the forest and told her. Still, whether she knew it by fair means or foul, the Miller’s Daughter was able to utterly defeat Rumpelstiltskin simply by uttering his name. He stamped his foot and disappeared through a hole in the ground, thereby freeing up the Miller’s Daughter to renege on her side of a bargain to give Rumpelstiltskin her firstborn child. So you see the power of a name.

This same emphasis on proper names exists to this day in our highly technological society. Your name and number are serious business to the feds. After all, they have to keep track of you.

And, getting back to coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, a study conducted in Sheffield, England, shows that children universally dislike clowns, and that a group of children, when asked for suggestions on how to refurbish the children’s wing of a hospital, requested the removal of the existing clown decor, which was supposed to be cheering, but which in reality frightened and revolted young patients. Naming the fear made it real.

A name is not the same as an explanation or a solution, but somehow it lends an aura of credibility or acceptability to what previously seemed to be an individual quirk or personal eccentricity.

I have never understood my own reluctance to perform such disparate tasks as have medical tests performed, open certain pieces of mail, or even answer the telephone. I was relieved to learn that this reluctance has a name: “information aversion syndrome.” So I’m not the only one!

A study at Claremont Graduate University, California, found that some participating students did not want to know the results of certain medical tests. Their aversion to this information increased according to the seriousness of the disease being tested for. So it follows that a person might be more reluctant to get a mammogram-let’s say-than to have her temperature taken.

Naming something makes it real, for better or worse. Naming a problem makes it easier to deal with, but a vague, nameless fear is easier to ignore. Knowledge is power, but ignorance is bliss.

I mentioned this to my friend Charla.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Hide your head in the sand. Maybe if you ignore a bad situation it will resolve itself.”

The idea isn’t new. People often don’t want to hear anything that interferes with their ideas about the way the world operates. Change is difficult, and it can be painful to give up certain prejudices or preconceptions or dreams. Take for example the lyrics to Mario Winans’ song “I Don’t Wanna Know:”

If you’re playin’ me, keep it on the low

‘Cause my heart can’t take it anymore

And if you’re creepin”, please don’t let it show

Oh baby, I don’t wanna know.

Have a good week.