Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Any one can tell me how to pronounce this word? Dr. Donald Dossey claimed that when you can pronounce the word your fear to Friday the 13th is cured.

Paraskevidekatriaphodia means the fear for Friday, the thirteenth. Today is the special day.

FRIDAY

13

Long word

I just wonder why there are such a long word Paraskevidekatriaphobia? I did spend some time to memorize this word. I told my friends about this word and they are all very surprised. 275 items were returned by Google for this term at the time when this article is written.

Joy of memorize long terms

When I was young, I was passionate to memorize Pi. I was marching toward 200 digits but now, I can only clearly recite the first 80 digits of Pi.

Pi = 3.1415926 535 8979 323 8462643 38327950 2884 19716 93993 7510 5820974 9445923 0781640 6286208 9986280

Longer Pi

According to this page, they have longer Pi:

Pi = 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679

8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196

4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273

7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094

3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912

9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132

0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235

4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859

5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303

5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989

3809525720 1065485863 2788659361 5338182796 8230301952 0353018529 6899577362 2599413891 2497217752 8347913151

5574857242 4541506959 5082953311 6861727855 8890750983 8175463746 4939319255 0604009277 0167113900 9848824012

8583616035 6370766010 4710181942 9555961989 4676783744 9448255379 7747268471 0404753464 6208046684 2590694912

9331367702 8989152104 7521620569 6602405803 8150193511 2533824300 3558764024 7496473263 9141992726 0426992279

6782354781 6360093417 2164121992 4586315030 2861829745 5570674983 8505494588 5869269956 9092721079 7509302955

3211653449 8720275596 0236480665 4991198818 3479775356 6369807426 5425278625 5181841757 4672890977 7727938000

8164706001 6145249192 1732172147 7235014144 1973568548 1613611573 5255213347 5741849468 4385233239 0739414333

4547762416 8625189835 6948556209 9219222184 2725502542 5688767179 0494601653 4668049886 2723279178 6085784383

8279679766 8145410095 3883786360 9506800642 2512520511 7392984896 0841284886 2694560424 1965285022 2106611863

0674427862 2039194945 0471237137 8696095636 4371917287 4677646575 7396241389 0865832645 9958133904 7802759009

9465764078 9512694683 9835259570 9825822620 5224894077 2671947826 8482601476 9909026401 3639443745 5305068203

4962524517 4939965143 1429809190 6592509372 2169646151 5709858387 4105978859 5977297549 8930161753 9284681382

6868386894 2774155991 8559252459 5395943104 9972524680 8459872736 4469584865 3836736222 6260991246 0805124388

4390451244 1365497627 8079771569 1435997700 1296160894 4169486855 5848406353 4220722258 2848864815 8456028506

0168427394 5226746767 8895252138 5225499546 6672782398 6456596116 3548862305 7745649803 5593634568 1743241125

They have 400 million digits of Pi…. I don’t think anyone want to memerize so many digits…

16 thoughts on “Paraskevidekatriaphobia

  1. It doesn’t matter how you pronounce it. Who is going to call you on it?

    My favourite English word is “antipenultimate”, as in “This is your antipenultimate chance to pronounce paraskevidekatriaphobia correctly.”

  2. Never got around to memorizing pi, but I did memorize the powers of 2 up to 32.

    It started out as a little game to kill time (in the first grade), and it went like this: 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 4+4=8, 8+8=16, but I went a bit overboard…

    This useless bit of knowledge helped me score a point at an interscholastic math contest ten years later.

    1 Power (2,0)

    2 1

    4 2

    8 3

    16 4

    32 5

    64 6

    128 7

    256 8

    512 9

    ==========

    1 024 10

    2 048 11

    4 096 12

    8 192 13

    16 384 14

    32 768 15

    65536 16

    131072 17

    262144 18

    524288 19

    ==========

    1 048 576 20

    2 097 152 21

    4 194 304 22

    8 388 608 23

    16 777 216 24

    33554432 25

    67108864 26

    134217728 27

    268435456 28

    536870912 29

    ==========

    1 073 741 824 30

    2 147 483 648 31

    4 294 967 296 32

  3. It is interesting to remember 2 power 32 too. :-) It is always interesting to remember something when I was young, but now I seldom spend so much time on that. I even don’t remember any phone number when I got the mobile phone… :-(

    BTW, I changed all the dashes to double dashes since it will cause problem when I archive and restore the system since dashes are used by MovableType as seperator between comments. :-)

  4. Do you guys really believe the bad fortune of 13th + Friday? Well, I don’t. But I was not luck last Friday.

    Anyway, find this site today is my luck.

    cheers,

    the 1st time comer, Kenny

  5. I am only interested in the long and strange word – paraskevidekatriaphodia. No praticular fear for the day – especially in a country with almost no christine tradition, Friday or 13th don’t have any praticular meaning.

  6. Indeed… it is rather amusing how a common day to most people, strikes fear into the hearts of some… and it isnt even the date itself, but the number 13… quite a few buildings here in America skip the 13th floor from 12 to 14 (even though we all know the 14th floor is the 13th, eh?), just because of superstition.. Quite frankly neither the number, nor the date bother me in the least… the same with voo doo, black cats and walking under ladders… mostly superstition..

    I’ve often wondered though, where it might have come from… I should look into it :P maybe, there was just some guy who always had bad things happen to him whenever he came into the house with his umbrella open, or some such.. one guy’s word spreads, then everyone deems it as “bad luck”, but in fact, just might be the one guy’s bad karma or some such.. frilly.

  7. Here’s a word I took the time to memorize when I was in Hawaii 20 years ago:

    humuhumunukunukuapua’a

    It’s the name of a very small fish common to the waters of Hawaii. It’s fun to say, too.

    And here’s what I long ago learned was the longest word in the English language:

    pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

    It’s short form is “silicosis” and it refers to a lung disease that afflicts coal miners.

    Have fun!

  8. Actually that word is a greek word pasraskeuh pronounced “pa-ra-ske-vee” means friday, deka pronounced theka (think decagon” means ten (or think decade) tria means three and phobia is fobia. To be afraid of.

  9. if david will excuse me, a non-native, commenting on this, the correct spelling of his favourite word is “antepenultimate”, “ante” coming from the ancient Latin word for “before”. :)

    anyway, best of luck with your blog JSW! :)

    ervin from budapest, hungary

  10. Why do they call it Friday the 13th and why do they faer it. I fear it to , but when i’m ready for something bad to happen it never does? Can you tell me why. I mean every single friday the 13th i’m trying but it never works well got to go bye

  11. The best way to pronounce it is to break it down to its components.

    Paraskeve = Friday

    Dekatria = 13 or 13th

    Phobia = fear

    Phonetically you would pronounce it like this…Pa ra ske vee theka tree uh foe bee uh

    The “th” in theka should be pronounced like the “th” in then or them.

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