[Antedating] Triskaidekaphobia (1908)

[Victor]

I got a couple of other random sources that clearly indicate that the
term was in common use and not simply a random occurrence.

First, the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia has an entry for
triakaidekaphobia. Volume X that has the entry appeared in 1911,
although, obviously, it was put together a lot earlier--and to have
earned an entry, the word must have been *in use* in the 1890s.

Then, there is the 1907 jargon use:

    The morbid phase of this subject has received considerable attention
from alienists, and already there is an extensive literature covering
almost every conceivable form of phobia, even the fear of the number
thirteen which, in accordance with the learned custom, has been
christened _triakaidekaphobia_.
[Josiah Morse, Ph.D., The Psychology and Neurology of Fear. American
Journal of Religious Psychology and Education: Monograph Supplement,
Vol. II. November 1907, p. 37]

Note the mention of "the learned custom". The reference alludes to
either Tuke's 1892 Dictionary cited earlier or to Hyslop's 1895 Mental
Physiology, which, in turn, cites the 1892 dictionary:

    To the morbid states of fear numerous names have been given.
_Amaxophobia_ signifies a morbid fear of being in a waggon or cart;
_claustrophobia_, fear of being in any closed space or chamber;
_batophobia_, a morbid fear of heights; _agoraphobia_, a fear of open
spaces. Beard ("Tuke's Dict.", p. 844) has classified certain conditions
of fear according to their causes, as follows:--_monophobia_, the fear
as such, [full quotation of the passage, all the way down to
_triakaidekaphobia_] &c.
[p. 403]

Similarly, George Milbry Gould's 1901 A Pocket Medical Dictionary gives
the term complete with pronunciation.

    Triakaidekaphobia. _tri-ak-i-dek-af-o'-be-ah._ Insane dread of the
number thirteen.
[George Milbry Gould's, A Pocket Medical Dictionary, 1901, p. 654]

The entry appeared in a number of medical dictionaries of the 1901-1919
period, including Lippincott's 1906, which was a de facto standard for
medical terminology.

There is also an entry in 1899 Dictionary of Medical Terms by Henry
Eugene de Meric, which gives English-French terminology correspondence
(otherwise known as translation).

    Triakaidekaphobia. Crainte (_f_) morbide du numero 13. [Tentative,
_s.f._
[p. 373]

The term continues to appear in medical dictionaries through 1922.
GoogleBooks has no citations of _Triakaidekaphobia_ past 1922. This
matches nicely with appearances of _Triskaidekaphobia_ in dictionaries
and textbooks. The earliest that Google has is 1908 Religion and
Medicine that includes Isador Coriat among its authors. Coriat is also
responsible for 1910 and 1916 Abnormal Psychology. Another name to watch
is William Dorland who used the term in his 1914 Illustrated Medical
Dictionary, which later became The American Illustrated Medical
Dictionary. Both the 1919 and 1922 editions of the latter contain both
terms! Then they disappear in GoogleBooks until 1960, with only 4
references to Triskaidekaphobia between 1960 and 1980. The two entries
also give slightly different etymology--one goes for "thirteen" the
other for "three and ten", which I find rather amusing.

As for the origin and dichotomy, one possibility is that the field
corrected itself over time, recognizing the original source as a typo.
Another is that the original coinage (presumably either from 1892 or its
source) was considered an error by either Coriat or Dorland and _they_
used their influence to rectify it in print. This still does not explain
a complete disappearance of the term for forty years. What about other
languages? [And, of course, GoogleBooks is by no means exhaustive.] It
is possible that there are simply insufficient numbers of books
published prior to 1980 that have been scanned into Google. It is also
possible that the term fell into obscurity (and Google does not appear
to have scanned major dictionaries from the 1920s forward), but it was
brought back to life by life by Martin Gardner.

    VS-)

Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> 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_).
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org