Happy Friggatriskaidekaphobia Day!

The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that
more than 17 million people are affected by friggatriskaidekaphobia
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When I was a kid...
we had two TV channels until the early '60s when WZZM, Channel 13, the local ABC Network affiliate came to town. To overcome the negative image of their assigned number, they adoped the slogan "I'm a triakaidekaphile" (I like thirteen).
{since the local CBS and NBC affiliates were channels 3 and 8, they later appealed to the logical and math minded with the slogan "13 is greater than 3 and 8 put together.".]

Once when my mom was busy she dropped me off with my half sister who went to visit a friend, so I spent an afternoon with a stranger, her friend's son. It was an oddly memorable afternoon - we discussed the Werner Roth X-Men art vs. the original Jack Kirby issues, listened to both sides of the Paperback Writer/Rain single by The Beatles, and I remember he had one of those old "I'm a Triakaidekaphile" buttons.
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Obviously Triakaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13 (I don't think I've ever written - or heard - that sentence before.) although Triskaidekadaphobe is more commonly used fior someone afraid of the number.
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Fear of Friday the Thirteenth:
paraskavedekatriaphobia or
friggatriskaidekaphobia

Supposedly we can credit/thank/blame the Christians for the fear of Friday the 13th. It is claimed (without biblical reference) that Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden on a Friday the 13th and that Cain slew his brother Abel on a Friday the 13th. It is also noted that there were 13 in attendence on that Good Friday of the Last Supper. at least until Judas ducked out on the check early to go run an important errand.
It is also claimed that The Christians spread these spurious slanders against Friday the 13th because it was a Holy Day of observance for worshipers of the Norse goddess Freya.
[As a sort of compromise, the Norse entities Wotan, Thor and Freya get days of the week named after them while The Christians only get one Christmas, but there is no legal observation of the ancient Norse holidays and their gods and goddesses get the lower case treatment.]
Also in Norse belief, Loki was the thirteenth god, the 13th guest at a dinner in honor of Baldr, whom he slew, and was the 13th guest at his funeral.
While 666 is The Number of the Beast, "13" is the number of aluminum.
Jews believe God has 13 attributes of mercy and 13 is the age of adulthood.
Wiccans feel 13 is the maximum number of members of a manageable coven.
In Tarot Decks, the 13th card of the Major Arcana is Death.

Friday the Thirteenth falls on a Tuesday for Greek and Spanish speaking nations and on a Monday in Russia.

Fear of the number 13 itself is believed to stem from the simplicity of counting in base twelve: ten fingers plus two feet. Most languages have distinct names for the first twelve numbers, after with the names become combinations of numbers and prefixes. (thirteen = three+ten).

Thirteen items cannot be shared evenly (unless you give one each to thirteen people).

Most tall buildings do not have a thirteenth floor. Most commercial airplanes do not have an aisle 13. Formula One racecars are never assigned the number 13. And Microsoft, which currently offers a program called Office 12, is currently working on beta tests of Office 14.
In February Brussells Airlines was temporarily grounded while the entire fleet had their logo changed from a lower case "b" made up of thirteen dots..

Even one of the positive associations with the number 13, the lagniappe or one extra given in a "Baker's Dozen" is added to prevent complaints, to prevent a short miscount or in case one goes bad.

The most positive association with the number thirteen, at least for Americans, is that our country originally had thirteen colonies and our original flag has a circle of 13 stars, plus thirteen stripes. Aren't you glad they decided to add more stars, so we don't have a seersucker flag with fifty stripes?

= Napoleon Park =
(13 letters in the name "Randy Crawford")

Fear of the number 13:
Triakaidekaphobia
Triskaidekaphobia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskaidekaphobia

Wikipedia page on Friday the 13th:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friggatriskaidekaphobia

"Friday the 13th" with Betsy Palmer and Kevin Bacon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/

"Friday" with Ice Cube and Chris Tucker
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113118/

"Freaky Friday" with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076054/

"His Girl Friday" with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/

"Thank God It's Friday" with Jeff Goldblum and Donna Summer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078382/

"Thirteen" with Holly Hunter and Jeremy Sisto
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328538/

"13 Going On 30" with Jennifer Garner
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337563/

"Apollo 13" with Tom Hanks and Ed Harris
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/

"Golgo 13" with Ken Takakura
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174699/

Defending Initial-Based Code-Terminologies

Defending initial-based code-terminologies

A week of two ago Isaiah Washington continued not shutting up about his firing from Grey's Anatomy and revealed his version of the original confrontation that began the situation.

Co-worker Patrick Dempsey did not want to film a scene until Ellen Pompeo was on the set, even though she was not in the scene. Washington cast an aspersion on Dempsey's acting ability. Some physical contact ensued.
And Washington states he never used the "f-word" in reference to gay co-worker T.R.Knight. What he said, as he recalls it, was that he was addressing Dempsey and told him "You can't treat me like some (f-word), you can't treat me like a (c-word), you can't treat me like some (p-word)."

Which proves that sometimes it's hard to explain what you said and what you meant when the media insists on reporting what you said in code.

I don't regularly watch "Family Guy" but I catch it occasionally if I'm bored. Recently I saw an episode in which Stewie suffered a severe sunburn. Later, after he healed and peeled, Brian the dog pointed out a large dark mole Stewie hadn't had before.
"Maybe it's... the C-word," Brian suggested.
Stewie got a disgusted look on his face and asked
"What does (bleep) have to do with anythiing?"
"No, no" replied a shocked Brian, "I meant cancer."

The problem is, there are only 26 letters in the alphabet and several of the more offensive vulgar terms start with the same letter.

For the most part, everyone knows what the "F-word" is, and many know the urban legend that states it was derived from the acronym "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge," which was an actual crime long before it was a Van Halen album title.
And yet everyone knows that Isaiah Washington did not tell Patrick Dempsey "You can't treat me like some f***."

When he referred to a "P-word" he was referring to a five letter slang term for genitalia, starting with P. Oddly, that is not enough information, since there is a five letter word starting with P which means a kitty cat which refers to the female privates and a five letter word starting with P which means to poke with a pin or needle which refers to the male pro-creative apparatus. The technical or medical term for which is also a five letter word starting with P.
However, Washington explained that he was not using the words F-- and P---- literally, but to refer to a weak or submissive person who could be easily be pushed around or bullied.

There are parts of the culture that has overcome religious based prejudices over sexual lifestyle. They have adopted the Seinfeldism NTTAWWT (not that here's anything wrong with that).
Without wanting to resort to racial stereotypes, it is rumored that there are some ethnic groups who place a much higher value on asserting ones masculinity and defending it even from mild aspersions. One such group contributed the word "Macho" to the lexicon, and Washington is a member of the other. So it is possible that he would not regard being referred to or treated as a f**k or a p***k as an insult at all. So we can deduce that the P-word he would have objected to being treated like would be the missing prefix from the song lyric "What's new, _____cat?"

While everyone knows what the F-word is, in this context he was clearly referring to what's often called "the other f-word". There are two, actually. F*****, a six letter word meaning bundle of sticks and the shortened version, F**, which is British slang for cigarette. Both have the same slang connotation, a slur directed at homosexuals. Washington, a tall handsome black male who is, reportedly, married to a woman, is concerned over being treated like a homosexual.

And he does not want to be treated like a c-word.
We assume he does not want really to be treated like cancer and subjected to surgical removal and chemotherapy (although his character was more or less excised with surgical precision from the cast of his program), but that's not what he actually meant.
So we assume he meant the vulgar sexual connotation of the word.
A c***, of course, is a p****. And yet, oddly enough, a c*** is a p****.
Of course a c*** is a male chicken... but wait, that is also an insulting term a man would not want to be treated like. (It's slang usage means coward, which is also similar to C-word.)
But we assume he meant c***, a word with no other meaning than the female sexual orifice, pronounced like the first syllable of the word country.

So Washington does not want to be abused or taken advantage of the way, traditionally, men have treated women or male homosexuals. He does not want to be treated like a woman or her sexual apparatus, or like a gay male. In short, he does not want to be f***ed.

Being a long term knee jerk anti-censorship type, I'm tempted to think that things would be simpler if the media could just go ahead and report when someone says f***, f** or f*****, p**** or p**** or c***, c*** or cancer.

But being a left leaning moderate with a penchant for political correctness, I'm persuaded that at times the use of code words and signifying letters are preferable to bluntness. Although I am not African-American myself, I don't care about the race of the user or the context of the usage, I simply don't care to hear the "N-word". And I think we all know what that means. Rhymes with Bigger (which is another racial stereotype) and is presumably derived from a corruption of the word Negro. It is not entirely precise since there are other N-words: rap and hip-hop culture also often use variants such as N***a (same word with the "r" sound dropped, evoking stereotypical Negro dialect) and n***az (same as above made plural by the addition of a "z".)

When people see or hear a word being used in the media it inures them to its shock value and allows them to consider the word as acceptable and in common usage.

It is ridiculous to try to suppress the F-word because it is, in fact, in extremely common usage in music, literature, the arts, much print media, pretty much everywhere but the public radio waves and broadcast television, where it is still treated as the most taboo of words.

Or perhaps the second most taboo, or tied for first. The N-word is also ubiquitous in some genres of music, in literature, film, adult news media, and is also strongly discouraged from being used casually on broadcast TV or the radio.

But there is a significant difference. The f-word had perhaps a hundred different meanings and usages as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, modifier and exclamation. Even taking it in its most traditional and literal meaning, the comedian/philosopher Lenny Bruce said that it was the nicest think two people can do, "so if you're mad at someone you shouldn't say 'f*** you' to them, you should say 'don't f*** you'."

Spokespersons for the hip-hop community claim the N-word also has multiple uses and meanings, depending on the context and the user. "Yo, (stranger)". "He's my (friend)". "(Brother), please!"

Originally the N-word was a derogatory term for Black person. The Black community has tried to reclaim the word as their own. This is a tactic that has worked for gay groups to diffuse the term "queer" and to a lesser extent for feminist groups who see strength and value in bitchiness.
Unfortunately Blacks still have minority status and the "it's okay when we say it" approach ultimately fails to diffuse it, it just guarantees that when a white person says it... well, they mean it.
Still, if the Black community wants to try to reclaim and diffuse the term, I suppose it's racist and oppressive for a white person to try to tell them not to.

It still rings to these ears as a bitter, hateful word - the worst in the English language. If you think you can change that, I can only reply "Brother, please!"

So as foolish and pointless and sometimes confusing as it is to obfuscate speech with nonsensical initial derived code-terms like F-word and c-word and "other f-word", I think it's worth the bother if it keeps children from growing up thinking it's okay to use the N-word.

Because some words are dirty, and other words are just plain nasty.

= Napoleon Park =