If “the biggest word you ever heard”, as the song goes, is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, then you are in for a shock, as this piece’s title is longer. It is, in fact, one of the longest words in the English language.

The longest word in English, which is five letters longer than the title, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is the name of a lung disease.

Returning to this piece’s headline – it is the name of a social phobia, the phobia of long words. If the word is too long for your liking, you can use its abbreviated form, sesquipedalophobia, but it is still a long word.

But what qualifies as a phobia? According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, some of the criteria of a social phobias are these: a distinct anxiety about social situations; the anxiety must be disproportionate to the social situation; the anxiety must be persistent and the social situation must be excessively avoided; and the fear, anxiety or avoidance must cause clinical distress.

This begs the question as to the difference between a phobia and fear. A phobia is excessive fear or anxiety related to specific situations that is not proportionate to the actual danger, while fear is a natural response to people believing that they are facing imminent danger.

Which brings us to September 8. This day holds no specific significance, unless, of course, it is your birthday. On that day, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) essentially delivered news that can be described as a severe punch in the gut. Well, maybe not the day but the events of the 90 days from April 1 to June 30 – also known as the second quarter of 2020, or as Stats SA alluded to, the pandemic quarter. According to Business Day, the period delivered the “worst gross domestic product (GDP) in a century”.

September 8 was the fruition of an event that was alluded to in the instalment of this column published on July 17, titled ‘Two economic hat-tricks’, in which I stated: “Three quarters of negative economic growth is arguably even worse than bad. South Africa is on the verge of a fourth consecutive quarter of negative economic growth.”

Rather than highlighting the fact that South Africa had recorded four negative quarters of economic growth (strange to use the word ‘growth’), Stats SA preferred the headline ‘Steep slump in GDP as Covid-19 takes its toll on the economy’. Pause for a moment and recall from the July 17 column that, “in the absence of a formal definition for a ‘recession’, it is generally acknowledged that two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth constitute a recession”.

So, if you are mathematically inclined, then South Africa is ‘Recession Square’; you might even say that South Africa is squarely in a recession. If you are of a cheery demeanour and want to break out in the Yazz song, The Only Way Is Up, you might want to ponder just how bad things are economically.

GDP fell by just over 16% between the first and second quarters of this year, giving an annualised growth rate of –51% – that is negative fifty-one per cent. South Africa recorded its lowest level of production since the first quarter of 2009, with construction the biggest loser, experiencing its eighth consecutive quarter of economic decline, slumping by 76.6%. Manufacturing output shrank by 74.9%, while the ban on alcohol sales impacted heavily on the food and beverage division of manufacturing. Air travel came to an almost complete halt, while there was less activity by rail and road freight operators as a result of restrictions on the production and movement of various goods. Ironically, agriculture was the only industry that was relatively unaffected.

Where to from here? As somecards.com states, “Dear life, when I said, ‘Can my day get any worse?’ it was a rhetorical question, not a challenge”.