Obsessed with dying on hills? You’re an orothanatomaniac.

I have noticed in the last two or three years that there are increasingly people who seem desperate to die on whatever (political, social, or moral) hill they see. Whatever issue or cause comes along, they immediately make it their entire personality – everything about them is devoted to it. They will spend hours and hours of their life fighting imagined mortal enemies online over their new cause. And then a few days or weeks later, another issue or cause – or even just vague concept – will come along, and that is now their new personality – the one thing in all of time that they must dedicate their life to.

It’s a phenomenon I see more on the political left than the political right.

I found I needed a word for such people: perhaps orothanatomaniac. Oro- is an English prefix of Greek origin meaning ‘mountain’ or ‘hill’. Orography or orology is the study of mountains and their formation. Orogenesis is the process of mountain formation. An oronym is the name of a mountain.

Thanato- is an English prefix of Greek origin meaning ‘death’. Thanatology is the study of death. And -mania is an English prefix of Greek origin meaning ‘madness’ or ‘obsession’. So orothanatomania is the obsession with dying on hills – in this case metaphorical ones. An orothanatomaniac is someone who exhibits this obsession.