Germaphobia

"I'm also very much of a germaphobe by the way. Believe me".

So said Donald Trump yesterday.

After playing a clip of him saying so this on this lunchtime's The World at One, Martha Kearney said (with a droll laugh):

Coining a new word there I think!

Now Martha really should have Googled around before saying that. Just because Donald Trump knows a word she doesn't know doesn't necessarily mean that silly Mr Trump has just made it up.

Google tells me that 'germaphobe' is the informal word for someone suffering from 'Mysophobia'. Its growth in popularity (as a word) rose steeply from the last decade of the 20th Century onward. Some credit that to its use in Seinfeld - though its use there was probably a joke. 

Anyhow, for more on 'germophobia', here's President-elect Trump's beloved CNN from 2011: We're a nation of germophobes. 

And here's his just-as-beloved BuzzFeed from 2013: 19 Ways To Tell If You Are A Germaphobe.