Interesting Facts

Lachanophobia is a fear of vegetables. (The reason this came up was there have been a couple of news stories on people suffering from this condition in the UK. According to the Mail Online, students Vicki Larrieux and Abi Stroud cannot eat their five a day because they suffer from panic attacks at the merest sight of a sprout or a pea, and what is worse The Metro reports that Dee Vyas developed the phobia after being made to eat greens as a child.  Why is it worse than the other two? She's a vegetarian! Seemingly, she lives off sweets and crisps. I think a bit of cognitive therapy would come in handy here.)  

Today is the first Friday the 13th of the year, and it's got the inter web thingy in a spin, but not everyone thinks the number 13 is unlucky. Triskaidekaphobia, is the phobia of the number 13, and there are a number of theories behind the cause of this association between thirteen and bad luck, but none of them have been accepted as universally true. (13 Lucky or Unlucky? Unlucky 13 The number 13 is considered to be an unlucky number in some countries. The end of the Mayan calendar's 13th Baktun is superstitiously feared as a harbinger of the apocalyptic 2012 phenomenon. Fear of the number 13 has a specifically recognized phobia, Triskaidekaphobia, a word which was coined in 1911. The superstitious sufferers of triskaidekaphobia try to avoid bad luck by keeping away from anything numbered or labelled thirteen. As a result, companies and manufacturers use another way of numbering or labeling to avoid the number, with hotels and tall buildings being conspicuous examp...

Haptephobia is the fear of being touched. (It comes from the Greek 'haphe' which means 'touch'. With the rise of hugging as a greeting it's becoming more obvious who suffers from this particular phobia. Group hug anyone?) If you want to discuss hugging, kissing, shaking hands and other ways of greeting people , join the forum.

Franklin D. Roosevelt wouldn't travel on Friday the 13th. (The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). The term triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, derives from the Greek words "tris", meaning 'three', "kai", meaning 'and', and "deka", meaning 'ten'. the whole word means three and ten. I'm not sure what the fear of pronouncing those phobias is called.)

You really can smell fear. (According to a study at Rice University in Houston there are chemical warning signals produced by fear. Now they just have to discover the sweet smell of success. There's an a-z list of phobias and fears on the forum.)

According to the National Phobics Society , four million people in the UK have phobias about toilets. (There are different words to describe this kind of phobia: Shy Bladder, Paruresis, Parcopresis. It must make daily life very awkward, although if you have used a public toilet in the UK you can understand people's alarm and as for France - well I'll admit it, I'm very afraid of French public loos - I can't go if it's one of those elephant's feet thingies. And let's face it, in America they have a phobia about the word toilet.)