Network Dictionary — Anatidaephobia — Fear the Rubber Duck

Definition

As you know, I have a rub­ber duck who sits on my desk ready to listen when I have a prob­lem. This is known as Rubber Duck Debugging and is the well known tech­nique for solv­ing dif­fi­cult problems.

In fact, my home study has a rub­ber duck who flashes dif­fer­ent col­ours when you touch him the right way. It’s very reas­sur­ing to know that he is happy when I talk to him.

But it’s pos­sible to “fear the rub­ber duck”. You don’t want to be in a situ­ation when the per­son in the next desk hears you talk­ing to your duck. Because that’s just silly, right ? Your duck is NOT watch­ing and wait­ing to talk to you… is he ?

That fear has a name.

Anatidaephobia — The fear that some­where, some­how, a duck is watch­ing you.

You must get over these fears. You must be strong. Fear is the mind killer, and you will not solve the unsolve­able until you speak with Rubber Duck.

Quack. Quack.

Reference

anatid­ae­ph­o­bia nonce-​​word the fear that some­where, some­how, a duck is watch­ing you [coined by Gary Larson, The Far Side]

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