Triskaidekaphobia – this was
the word I learned on Friday the 13th after the instructor gave some
quick trivia to her students about Friday the 13th. Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the
number 13. Of course Jenna was already
familiar with the word as long words are a part of her vocabulary. She doesn’t
think it’s as fun to say as Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, however.
Evidently I had never either
learned about Friday the 13th or just hadn’t commited it to memory
about the reasons behind the superstition and was surprised to learn about the
Christian involvement as Judas Iscariot (number 13 in the group with Christ and
his 12 apostles) and because of the cruxifixion happening on Friday.
She also wrote the date without dashes 91319 – and pointed
out the number reads the same forward as it does backward – which brings us to
our second word: Palindrome
I
have been doing some wordsearch puzzles and the directions for one was to find
12 palindromes: that is 12 words that are spelled the same forward as it is backward. Some of the words I remember were: mom,
kayak, wow, civic and noon. I had
learned about palindromes quite a while ago,
but had forgotten the name of the word. I enjoy learning more as I get older
than I did as a youth. I’m grateful that
Jenna enjoys learning.
