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A Day to Fear?: As luck - or unluck -would have it, today is the third Friday the 13th of the year
Journal Graphic by Richard Boyd II
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Published: November 13, 2009
Did 1998 seem like a particularly unlucky year? If so, brace yourself: That year had three Friday the 13ths in it, and this year has the same.
Today is the third Friday of the year to fall on a date numbered 13.
To some people, that's a double-dose of misfortune. To others, it's just a random configuration of arbitrarily established names and numbers.
Fridays have been associated with bad luck since at least the 14th century, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in The Canterbury Tales, "And on a Friday fell all this mischance." References to Friday as a bad day became more popular in the 17th century.
And the origin of 13 as an unlucky number? There are various theories, according to the Urban Legends Web site (www.snopes.com), including that there were 13 people at the Last Supper.
Donald Dossey, a behavioral scientist and folklore expert, runs the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville and the Web site Drdossey.com. In the 1980s, he coined the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia" for a fear of Friday the 13th. Some refer to it as triskaidekaphobia, but that is merely a fear of the number 13.
Dossey said that there is no specific term for the fear of multiple Friday the 13ths in the same year.
"It's just more days of stress-out time for those who have the fear of Friday the 13th," he said.
He estimated that 17 million people in the United States suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia. "But symptoms vary," he said. "It ranges from a nagging sense of doom all the way to not getting out of bed that day."
Dossey said he usually tells people that once they learn how to pronounce paraskevidekatriaphobia, they are cured of it. (I'd tell you how to pronounce it, but that would be cheating).
Fortunately for all of us, none of the three Friday the 13ths this year fall on full moons or worse, on months with blue moons -- two full moons in the same month.
"That is super-duper unlucky," Dossey said with a laugh.
Next year should be a bit easier. There's only one Friday the 13th in 2010, and it's in August. That's when the next Friday the 13th movie is due, so it should be an unlucky day for moviegoers if no one else.
The next triple-dose comes in 2012, which, you may have heard, isn't supposed to be a great year anyway.
tclodfelter@wsjournal.com
727-7371
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