Platzangst is a German word, combining "platz" for "place" with "angst" for "fear" -- literally, "place fear."
It's a delicious word for us at LoS, with our obsessions over place and meaning. "Place fear" in English sounds like a reference to a haunting--a specific place that is feared or that generates fear--but Platzangst is more generalized. Plaztangst originally fell along the line of agoraphobia, and it has curiously grown even broader in usage, now encompasing claustrophobia as well. Somehow, though, agoraphobia and claustrophobia are both probably even more specific than Platzangst. There are many place fears that are not quite named in English: some people suffer panic attacks when passing others on sidewalks; others cannot cross an empty road; and then there are those who grow uneasy, increasingly uneasy, if they sense something near their head just out of the line of sight unless they are wearing a hat or touching their foreheads. This list of place fears is only limited by the number of people on Earth. Platzangst captures all of these and more--much better than any term I know in English.
I wonder, though, what is the opposite of Platzangst--what is the word for Place Love? I don't mean "place love" as in, "Hey I really dig this place! What a great view! Feels like home! I love it here!"
I mean dirty love--pure raunch. I mean a person who gets off on "place"--perhaps open or closed, or perhaps something even more specifically situated in space. I'm sure that there are plenty of claustrophiles--are there also agroraphiles? What sort of culture would require such words?
