Heptadecaphobia (pronounced hepp-tah-dech-ah-foh-bee-uh)
Fear of the
number 17.
1700s: The construct was the Ancient Greek δεκαεπτά (dekaepta) (seventeen) + φόβος (phobos). The alternative form is septadecaphobia, troubling some the purists because they regard it as a Greek-Latin mongrel, the construct being the Latin septem (seven) + deca, from the Latin decas (ten), from the Ancient Greek δεκάς (dekás) (ten) + the Ancient Greek φόβος) (phobos) (fear). Heptadecaphobia deconstructs as hepta- “seven” + deca (ten) + phobos. The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later). Heptadecaphobia, heptadecaphobist, heptadecaphobism, heptadecaphobiac and heptadecaphobe are nouns, heptadecaphobic is a noun & adjective and heptadecaphobically is an adverb; the common (sic) noun plural is heptadecaphobes and they should number 59 million-odd (the population of Italy).
Morphologically, “heptadecaphilliac” is possible but is clumsy and unnecessary, the standard noun agent (-phile) rendering it redundant and although used, not all approve of the suffix -phobiac because it’s a later hybrid formation from modern English and thus judged “less elegant”. The opposite condition (a great fondness for 17) is the noun heptadecaphilia, those with the condition being Heptadecaphiles, the derived words following the conventions used with heptadecaphobia. Whether any of the derived forms have much (or ever) been used beyond lists asserting they exist (which, except as abstractions, may be dubious) is unlikely but concerned Italians should note the noun heptadecaphobist would seem to imply doctrinal adherence rather than suffering the fear. Still, it’s there if the need exists for precision in one’s behavioural descriptors. Modern English constructions (like heptadecaphobia) built from Greek morphemes are neo-classical” compounds rather than a “proper” words from the Ancient Greek and while some amuse or appal the classicists, in practice, variations in suffix-use have long be tolerated.
In Classical Greek, the cardinal number 17 was ἑπτακαίδεκα (heptakaídeka; literally “seven-and-ten”) but the Ancients were as adept as us at clipping for convenience and the variant ἑπταδέκα (heptadéka; literally “seven-ten”) also exists in surviving texts. The shorter element embedded in heptadecaphobia corresponds to heptadeca- (from ἑπταδέκα) and genuinely that is Classical Greek, although, on the basis of the count from what documents are extant, it was less common than ἑπτακαίδεκα. The latter-day hybridization was inevitable because, as far as in known, “seventeen” had not before been used as a combining stem in compounds. In English, the convention in neoclassical formation tends the sequence: (1) take the cardinal form, (2) drop the inflection and (3) treat it as a stem, thus the construct heptadeca + phobia, familiar to structuralists in the more common triskaidekaphobia which uses the Greek tris-kai-deka (“three and ten”) despite in genuine Greek morphology, compounds being not usually directly from ἑπταδέκα as a bound stem. It’s better to follow modern practice rather than try to conjure something “classically pure” because although one could argue heptakaidekaphobia (closer to ἑπτακαίδεκα) is a better tribute to Antiquity, as well as being historically unattested, it’s phonetically cumbersome which seems a worse linguistic sin.
Just because a “fear of a number” is listed somewhere as a “phobia” doesn’t mean the condition has much of a clinical history or even that a single case is to be found in the literature; many may have been coined just for linguistic fun and students in classics departments have been set assessment questions like “In Greek, construct the word meaning “fear of the number 71” (the correct answer being “hebdomekontahenophobia”). Some are well documented such as tetraphobia (fear of 4) which is so prevalent in East Asia it compelled BMW to revise the release strategy of the “4 Series” cars and triskaidekaphobia (fear of 13) which has such a history in the West it’s common still for hotels not to have a 13th floor or rooms which include “13”, something which in the pre-digital age was a charming quirk but when things were computerized added a needless complication. The use of the actual number is important because in such a hotel the “14th” floor is (in the architectural sense) of course the 13th but there’s little to suggest there’s ever been resistance from guests being allocated room 1414.
Some number
phobias are quite specific: Rooted in the folklore of Australian cricket is a
supposed association of the number 87 with something bad (typically a batter (DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) means they're no longer "batsmen") being dismissed) although it seems purely anecdotal and more than one
statistical analysis (cricket is all about numbers) has concluded there's nothing “of statistical
significance” to be found and there’s little to suggest players take the matter seriously. One English umpire famously had “a routine”
associated with the score reaching a “repunit” (a portmanteau (or blended)
word, the construct being re(eated) + unit)
(eg 111, 222, 333 etc) but that was more fetish than phobia.
No fear of 17: Lindsay Lohan appeared on the covers of a number of issues of Seventeen magazine. Targeted at the female market (age rage 12-18), the US edition of Seventeen is now predominately an on-line publication, printed only as irregular "special, stand-alone issues" but a number of editions in India and the Far East continue in the traditional format.
Other illustrative number phobias include oudenophobia (fear of 0), (trypophobia (fear of holes) said to sometimes be the companion condition), henophobia (fear of 1) (which compels sufferer to avoid being associated with “doing something once”, being the “first in the group” etc), heptaphobia (fear of 7) (cross-culturally, a number also with many positive associations), eikosiheptaphobia (fear of 27) (a pop-culture thing which arose in the early 1970s when a number of rock stars, at 27, died messy, drug-related deaths), tessarakontadyophobia (fear of 42) (which may have spiked in patients after the publication of Douglas Adams’ (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992), enenekontenneaphobia (fear of 99) (thought not related to the Get Smart TV series of the 1960s), tetrakosioeikosiphobia (fear of 420) (the syndrome once restricted to weed-smokers in the US but long internationalized), the well-documented hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (fear of 666), heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphobia (fear of 747) (though with the withdrawal from passenger service of the tough, reliable (four engines and made of metal) Boeing 747 and its replacement with twin-engined machines made increasingly with composites and packed with lithium-ion batteries, a more common fear may be “not flying on a 747”, most common among heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphiles). Enniakosioihendecaphobia (fear of 911) was, in the US, probably a co-morbidity with tetrakosioeikosiphobia but it may also have afflicted also those with a bad experience of a pre-modern Porsche 911 (1963-) which, in inexpert hands, could behave as one would expect of a very powerful Volkswagen Beetle, the most acute cases manifesting as triskaidekaphobia (fear of 930, that number being the internal designation for the original 911 Turbo (1974-1989), the fastest of the breed, soon dubbed the "widow-maker").
Nongentiseptuagintatrestrillionsescentiquinquagintanovemmiliacentumtredecimdeciesoctingentivigintiquattuormiliatrecentiphobia (fear of 973,659,113,824,315) describes a the definitely rare condition and it's assumed that was word was coined by someone determined to prove it could be done. There’s also compustitusnumerophobia (fear of composite numbers), meganumerophobia (fear of large numbers), imparnumerophobia (fear of odd numbers), omalonumerophobia (fear of even numbers), piphobia (fear of pi), phiphobia (fear of the golden ratio), primonumerophobia (fear of prime numbers), paranumerophobia (fear of irrational numbers), neganumerophobia (fear of negative numbers) and decadisophobia (fear of decimals). All such types are unrelated to arithmophobia (or numerophobia) which is the "fear of numbers, calculations & math", a syndrome common among students who "just don't get it" and there are many because those "good at math" and those not really are two separate populations; it's rare to be able to transform the latter into the former, a better solution being to send them to law school where many flourish, needing to master the arithmetic only of billing their time in six-minute increments (1/10th of an hour). Having ten fingers and thumbs, most manage the calculations. The marvellous Wiki Fandom site and The Phobia List are among the internet’s best curated collection of phobias.
The only
one which debatably can’t exist is neonumerophobia (fear of new numbers)
because, given the nature of infinity, there can be no “new numbers” although,
subjectively, a number could be “new” to an individual so there may be a need. Sceptical though mathematicians are likely to
be, the notion of the “new number” ("zero" debatably the last) has (in various ways) been explored in
fiction including by science fiction (SF or SciFi) author & engineer Robert
A Heinlein (1907–1988) in The Number of
the Beast (1980), written during his “later period”. More challenging was Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by English schoolmaster
& Anglican priest Edwin Abbott (1838–1926) which was published under
the pseudonym “A Square”, the layer of irony in that choice revealed as the protagonist
begins to explore dimensions beyond his two-dimensional world (in Victorian England). Feminists note also Ursula K Le Guin’s
(1929–2018) The Left Hand of Darkness
(1969) in which was created an entirely new numerical system of “genderless"
numbers”. That would induce fear in
a few.
In entymology, there are insects with no fear of the number 17. In the US, the so-called “periodical cicadas” (like those of the genus Magicicada) exist in a 17 year life cycle, something thought to confer a number of evolutionary advantages, all tied directly to the unique timing of their mass emergence: (1) The predator satiation strategy: The creatures emerge in massive numbers (in the billions), their sheer volume meaning it’s physically impossible for predators (both small mammals & birds) to eat enough of them to threaten the survival of the species. (2) Prime number cycles: Insects are presumed unaware of the nature of prime numbers but 17 is a prime number and there are also periodic cicadas with a 13 (also a prime) year cycle. The 13 (Brood XIX) & 17-year (Brood X) periodic cicadas do sometimes emerge in the same season but, being prime numbers, it’s a rare event, the numbers' LCM (least common multiple) being 221 years; the last time the two cicadas emerged together was in 1868 and the next such event is thus expected in 2089. The infrequency in overlap helps maintain the effectiveness of the predator avoidance strategies, the predators typically having shorter (2-year, 5-year etc) cycles which don’t synchronize with the cicadas' emergence, reducing chances a predator will evolve to specialize in feeding on periodical cicadas. (3) Avoidance of Climate Variability: By remaining underground for 17 years, historically, periodical cicadas avoided frequent climate changes or short-term ecological disasters like droughts or forest fires. The long underground nymph stage also allows them to feed consistently over many years and emerge when the environment is more favorable for reproduction. Etymologists and biological statisticians are modelling scenarios under which various types of accelerated climate change are being studied to try to understand how the periodic cicadas (which evolved under “natural” climate change) may be affected. (4) Genetic Isolation: Historically, the unusually extended period between emergences has isolated different broods of cicadas, reducing interbreeding and promoting genetic diversity over time, helping to maintain healthy populations over multiple life-cycles.
There are a variety of theories to account for the Italian superstition which had rendered 17 the national “unlucky number” but it does seem to be due primarily to a linguistic and symbolic association from ancient Rome. The most accepted explanation is that in Roman numerals 17 is XVII which, anagrammatically, translates to VIXI (Latin for “I have lived” (the first-person singular perfect active indicative of vīvō (to live; to be alive)), understood in the vernacular as “my life is over” or, more brutally: “I am dead”. It was something which appeared often on Roman tombstones, making an enduring record which ensured the superstition didn’t have to rely on collective memory or an oral tradition for inter-generational transfer. That would have been ominous enough but Romans noted also that Osiris, the Egyptian god of, inter alia, life, death, the afterlife and resurrection, had died on the 17th day of the month, 17 thus obviously a “death number” to the logical Roman mind and the worst 17th days of the month were those which coincided with a full moon. The cosmic coincidence was an intensifier in the same sense that in the English-speaking world the conjunction leading to a Friday falling on the 13th makes the day seem threatening. Thus, just as in some places hotels have neither 13th floor or rooms containing “13”, in Italy it’s “17” which is avoided although not having a row 17 in its airliners didn’t save Alitalia (Società Aerea Italiana, the now-defunct national carrier) from its COVID-era demise. Of course not labelling a row or floor “13” or “17” doesn’t mean a 13th or 17th something doesn’t exist, just that it’s called “14” or “18” so it’s the symbolic association which matters, not the physical reality. Mashing up the numerical superstitions, that 17 is an “unlucky number” shouldn’t be surprising because it’s the sum of 13 + 4, the latter being the most dreaded number in much of East Asia, based on the pronunciation resembling “death” in both Chinese and Japanese.
In automotive manufacturing, there was nothing unusual about unique models being produced for the Italian domestic market, the most common trick being versions with engines displacing less than 2.0 litres to take advantage of the substantially lower tax regime imposed below that mark. Thus Ferrari (1975-1981) and Lamborghini (1974-1977) made available 2.0 litre V8s (sold in RoW (rest of the world) markets variously in 2.5 & 3.0 litre displacements), Maserati a 2.0 V6 (usually a 3.0 in the Maserati Merak (1972-1983) although it appeared in 2.7 & 3.0 litre form in the intriguing but doomed Citroën SM (1970-1975)) and Mercedes-Benz created a number of one-off 2.0 litre models in the W124 range (1974-1977) exclusive to the Italian domestic market (although an unrelated series of 2.0 litre cars was also sold in India). Others followed the trend although, the more expensive they were, the less appeal seemed to exist despite, in absolute terms, the saving increasing as the price rose. Maserati offered a twin-turbo 2.0 in the aptly named BiTurbo, BMW did a one off 320is and Alfa Romeo produced a run of 2.0 V6s.
From an engineering point of view, most audacious doubtlessly was the 2.0 litre version of TVR's V8S (1991-1994). Supplied usually with a 4.0 litre version of the versatile Rover V8, the capacity of the version for the Italian market was halved by de-stroking, the bore of 88.9 and stroke of 40.25 mm creating an outrageously oversquare bore/stroke ratio of 45.28 but, with the assistance of a supercharger, the quirky engine almost matched in power and torque the naturally aspirated original with twice the displacement; It was a classic example of the effectiveness of forced-aspiration although it did demand of drivers a different technique. By comparison, the Formula One BRM H16’s (1966-1967) bore & stroke was 69.8 x 49.9 mm and it was so oversquare to reduce the frictional losses which would have been induced had a longer stroke been used with that many cylinders; its bore/stroke ration was 71.48 compared with the almost square BRM V16 designed in the 1940s, the latter able to be in that configuration because (1) it was supercharged and (2) being only 1.5 litres, the stroke was anyway physically short in absolute terms. The 2.4 litre V8s used in Formula One between 2006-2013 had to have a maximum bore of 98 and stroke of 40 mm (bore/stroke ratio 40.81) and that’s an indication of the characteristics the 2.0 litre TVR V8S offered. Disappointingly, it was an experience few Italians sought and only seven were built.
It was Suzuki which had more success with work-arounds to Rome’s tiresome regulations. Their two-stroke, triple cylinder GT380 (1972-1980) motorcycle was for most of its existence made with an actual displacement of 371 cm3 but in 1975, the Italian government passed a law banning the importation of motor-cycles under 380 cm3 and weighing less than 170 kg. Accordingly, the Japanese produced a “big bore” 380 exclusively for the Italian market displacing an actual 384 cm3. The portly triple would never have run afoul of the weight limit but just to avoid any unpleasantness, the data plate riveted to the frame recorded a verified mass of 171 kg. Honor apparently satisfied on both sides, the GT380 remained available in some places until 1980, outliving the Suzuki’s other two-strokes triples by three seasons.
One special change for the Italian market was a nod to the national heptadecaphobia, the car known in the rest of the world (RoW) as the Renault 17 (1971-1979) sold in Italy as the R177. For the 17, Renault took the approach which had delivered great profits: use the underpinnings of mundane mass-produced family cars with a sexy new body draped atop. Thus in the US the Ford Falcon (1959-1969) begat the Mustang (1964-) and in Europe Ford made the Capri (1968-1976) from the Cortina (1962-1982). Opel’s swoopy GT (1968-1973) was (most improbably) underneath just the modest Kadett. It wasn’t only the mass-market operators which used the technique because in the mid 1950s, Mercedes-Benz understood the appeal of the style of the 300 SL (W198, 1954-1957) was limited by the high price which was a product of the exotic engineering (the space-frame, gullwing doors, dry sump and the then novel MFI (mechanical fuel-injection)), the solution being to re-purpose the platform of the W120, the small, austere sedan which helped the company restore its fortunes in the post-war years before the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) was celebrated in 1959 with the exuberance of the Heckflosse (tailfin) cars (1959-1968). On the W120 platform was built the 190 SL (W121, 1955-1963), an elegant (it not especially rapid) little roadster which quickly became a trans-Atlantic favourite, particularly among what used to be called the “women’s market”.
Using the same formula, the Renault 17 was built on the underpinnings of the Renault 12, a remarkably durable platform, introduced in 1969 and, in one form or another, manufactured or assembled in more than a dozen countries, the last not produced until 2006. Like the Anglo-German Ford Capri, the 17 was relatively cheap to develop because so much was merely re-purposed but for a variety of reasons, it never managed to come close to match the sales of the wildly successful Ford, FWD (front wheel drive) not then accepted as something “sporty” and Renault's implementation on the 17 was never adaptable to the new understanding of the concept validated by FWD machines such as Volkswagen’s Golf GTi which would define the “hot hatch”. Like most of the world, the Italians never warmed to the 17 but presumably the reception would have been even more muted had not, in deference to the national superstition about the number 17, the name been changed to “Renault 177”, the cheaper companion model continuing to use the RoW label: Renault 15.
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