[Antedating] Triskaidekaphobia (1908)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Bonnie Taylor-Blake wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bonnie Taylor-Blake <taylor-blake at NC.RR.COM>
> Subject:      [Antedating] Triskaidekaphobia (1908)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> OED2 shows a usage of "triskaidekaphobia" in 1911 by I.H. Coriat.  Just a
> few years earlier, Coriat had co-authored a book in which the word appeared.
>
> -------------------------
>
> Among the more common [phobias] are "monophobia," fear of being alone;
> "claustrophobia," fear of narrow places; "agoraphobia," fear of broad or
> open places; "ereutophobia," fear of blushing; "triskaidekaphobia," fear of
> the number 13; "mysophobia," fear of dirt or microbes; "nosophobia," fear of
> disease.  [p. 281]
>
> [From E. Worcester, S. McComb, I.H. Coriat, _Religion and Medicine:  The
> Moral Control of Nervous Disorders_. New York:  Moffat, Yard & Company,
> 1908.]
>
> -------------------------
>
> David Dossey seems to have coined "paraskevidekatriaphobia" in 1992 to
> describe a fear of a day such as today.
>
> http://drdossey.com/fri13.htm
>
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Before "triskaidekaphobia" there was "triakaidekaphobia".

 From Google Books:

Rudolf Arndt, in Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_ (1892):
p. 844:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/cvp74r

<<According to the cause of this fear, many special conditions have been
described, and Beard especially has taken great pains in particularising
them. Thus, we find _monophobia_, fear as such; _anthropophobia_, the
fear of being with others; _pathophobia_, the fear of becoming ill
(otherwise comprised under hypochondriasis); _pantophobia_, fear of
everything; _astrophobia_, fear of lightning; _rupophobia_ (Verga), the
fear of being dirty; _siderodromophobia_, the fear of going by train;
_nyctophobia_, the fear of night; _phobophobia_, the fear of becoming
afraid. Were we to carry this absurdity farther, we might distinguish a
much greater number of conditions of fear: _skopophobia_ and
_klopsophobia_, the fear of spies and thieves; _thanatophobia_, the fear
of death ; _necrophobia_, the fear of the dead and of phantasms;
_triakaidekaphobia_, the fear of the number thirteen, &c., but what
should we gain?>>

Only amusement for the amateur philologists maybe.

There are other equivalents too: a total of six synonyms were listed
recently by Robertson (_Words for a Modern Age_).

-- Doug Wilson

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