Yes, it’s here again! Stock up on canned meats! Lock your doors! Turn out the lights! Huddle in the corner of your basement until it’s over! It’s Friday the 13th, and if you have paraskevidekatriaphobia, this is your worst nightmare!
Pair of skivvies what? Paraskevidekatriaphobia – the fear of Friday the 13th. It’s a mouthful, but when you break it down to its Greek roots, it’s pretty simple.
When I first saw this word, several parts were very easy to interpret. Let’s work backwards. Most of us know what a phobia is: a fear of something. Acrophobia, hydrophobia, arachnophobia: we’ve all heard of these fears, and some of you may even have one or two.
Tri, meaning “three,” is obvious to most as well. We all know tricycles, tripods, and triage. And deka, meaning “ten,” is better known as “deca” as in decade, decathlon, and decapods. (Okay, that last one is less-known: they are crustaceans with ten legs such as crayfish, crabs, and lobsters. We love eating decapods in Baltimore!)
So we now have “fear” and “13.” But what about paraskevi?
This is the part of the word that really caught my eye. I have a friend of Greek decent whose surname is Paraskevoudakis. I knew paraskevi had something to do with Friday, but how was this connected to his name? Does his name mean “Friday” in Greek?
Well, in a way. Paraskevi actually means “preparation.” And since the Sabbath is on Saturday and you prepare for it on Friday, Friday is called “preparation” or “paraskevi.”
See how easy that was! Let’s dig a little deeper into our Greek roots.
The next time you are cooking bacon in a pan, think of love. Yes, the love you have for that crispy piece of pork belly is obviously on your mind. But I’m thinking of the love that will help you clean that greasy pan when you’re done, for attraction is the key to clean dishes.
We all know the suffix -phile means “love” or “attraction.” You might have heard of bibliophiles (books), Francophiles (French culture), and technophiles (technology). And did you know there are -philes that help you clean your dishes?
In order for a soap molecule to work, it needs to have two sides that love very different things: a hydrophilic side and a lipophilic side. Without these two sides working together, we would be eating off greasy plates every evening.
The hydrophilic side loves water. It drinks it up. It just wants to hook up with it whenever it’s near. It’s crazy in love.
The lipophilic side is just as in love. But in this crazy, commensal relationship, it is in love with another. It is in love with fat. Can you say “liposuction”?
So with this combination of yin and yang, a soap molecule hooks a molecule of fat to a molecule of water. The water molecules stick together and they sweep the fat off their electrons and take them far away from your pots and pans. It’s a veritable Bunker Brothers story.
Knowing some of these roots can help you interpret words you’ve never come across before. I occasionally play trivia with friends in a local bar, and one time we were asked “What is a dactylogram?”
Well the first thing that comes to mind is a pterodactyl – an extinct, giant, flying reptile whose name means “winged finger.” And what does gram mean? A telegram is something that is written or printed at a distance (telephone is voice at a distance, television is sight at a distance, etc.). So a dactylogram is a fingerprint. Pretty easy, right?
So go ahead and get your hands dirty. Digging into our Greek roots can help with your mastery of the English language, as well as help you get a few extra points on trivia night.
To dig more into our Greek roots, check out Wikipedia’s extensive list of ancient Greek words and their English derivatives here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Ancient_Greek_words_with_English_derivatives
