Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yup. Just make sure to walk under a ladder and spill salt on your black cat while tripping on your untied shoelace and breaking a mirror. rolleyes

I feel sorry for 13. It gets such a bad reputation gonk

The funny thing about today...

My Sociology of Deviance class was canceled without warning, my shift was extended at the Writing Center, and I got an empty voicemail from nowhere.

That sort of scared me though I'm not superstitious. xp

Speaking of the superstition regarding the number 13, you know how some buildings skip the 13th floor and go directly from 12th to 14th?

I've always joked that if they took out all the numbers with negative connotations in different cultures, there won't be any left.

For example, in Chinese (and Japanese, and I think Korean too), the word for "four" sounds similar to the word for "death" (they aren't exact homophones because the tones are different), and therefore it is considered an unlucky number. Hong Kong is very westernised but it still has more Chinese people than westerners, so there are buildings in Hong Kong that would skip the 13th floor as well as all the ones with the number 4 in them to accommodate for the different superstitions.

Exactly.

In general, in the British system, you start on the ground floor, and in the American system you start from the first floor, but some buildings might also have a mezzanine or other floors in between that aren't numbered.

I knew that about buildings, but no one ever beleives me when I tell them. emo

In addition to four meaning death, nine also means suffering (according to a friend). Those are some awfully happy numbers, eh?

That's odd, especially considering that Japanese is mostly based on Chinese.

My friend's birthday is on April 9 gonk She's in for death and long-lasting suffering.

I wonder if there's anything wrong with the number 17?