Some people are scared of the number 13. Is there a word for it?
(Balram Choudry, Sedam)
The word that you have in mind is ‘triskaidekaphobia’. In Greek, ‘tris’ means ‘three’, ‘kai’ means ‘and’, and ‘deka’, as you have probably guessed, means ‘ten’. There are several ways of pronouncing this word. The ‘i’ in the first syllable is like the ‘i’ in ‘it’ and ‘bit’, and the following ‘kai’ rhymes with ‘why’ and ‘bye’. The ‘dek’ is pronounced like the word ‘deck’, while the ‘e’ that follows is like the ‘a’ in china. The word is pronounced ‘triskydeckephobia’.
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“Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.” — Evan Esar
S. UPENDRAN
upendrankye@gmail.com
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