The year 1998 was a bad for triskaidekaphobics. Strictly, the word does refer only to fear of the number 13, but it’s often extended to mean fear of the inauspicious date [Friday 13th]. That year was one of the comparatively rare ones in which that date turned up three times. Every year has at least one Friday 13th, but in each of the 28-year [cycles] of our calendar there are four years that have three of them. The only [consolation] I can offer to those affected is that there won’t be another for 11 years. But then we shall have three in short order: 2009, 2012 and 2015. The word’s origins are all Greek, from [tris], “three”, kai, “and”, [deka], “ten” (so making thirteen), plus phobia, “fear, flight”. The word is a modern formation, dating only from [1911] (it first appeared in I H Coriat’s Abnormal [Psychology]). Though it has a serious use in [psychology], it seems to exist mostly to provide an opportunity for people like me to show off weird words from classical languages.