Certain numbers have power. Salaries, for instance. That’s one number that can overwhelmingly influence how good of a time you’re having on this wet rock. In the belief of some, though, there’s also certain numbers that have less direct, more mystical effects. They vary from culture to culture, but they can be serious enough to get entire building blueprints or official business plans changed.
Here are five numbers that get avoided by people who are apparently scared of spooky math…
Thirteen
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The original scary number, the one with its own horror movie franchise. Surprisingly, though, its roots might not go back as far as you think. One popular explanation is that 13 references the 13th person to be seated at the last supper, Judas. The evidence doesn’t back this up, though. There aren’t ancient references to 13 being unlucky, and it seems like something that evolved more recently out of some sort of genuine, deep-seated distaste for the number in the human brain. The aforementioned Jason Voorhees connection doesn’t help.
Whatever the origin, people take it pretty seriously. Everything from skyscrapers to Ferris wheels skip the number 13 when it comes to numbering.
Four
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Thirteen, though, is only the go-to oh-no number in Western culture. In Asian countries, a different numeral bears the mantle of evil: four. This one at least does have a pretty simple explanation: a poorly planned coincidence in language. The word for four in Japanese, shi, shares another meaning: death. Understandably, people aren’t too amped about seeing that on their hotel room door. Four and death are also the same word in Korean, and are close enough for discomfort in Chinese.
In addition to the usual skipped floors, the heebie-jeebies around the number can even have effects on business, with many avoiding a four in telephone numbers, model numbers and addresses.
39
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In Afghanistan, the number 39 has unpleasant associations both old and new. In antiquity, the fact that it translates into morda-gow, meaning “dead cow” made it a cursed number. The modern ick associated is much more moralistic. The number “39” is apparently slang for a pimp in Afghanistan, like “5-0” is for cops in the U.S. That stink drives people away from it whenever looking for an apartment or similar. Case in point: Apparently, in the city of Herat, when license plate numbers ticked up to the 39,000-39,999 range, people just stopped applying for them.
93 and 175
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These numbers are also numeri non grata because of unsavory connections, in this specific case a tragedy — one that’s from still only roughly two decades ago. These were the flight numbers of the two United flights hijacked on 9/11. For pretty understandable reasons from a business, superstition and a respect standpoint, United no longer uses these number for flights. With the exception of by accident once in 2011, which they ended up having to apologize for.
1488
Bad news for anyone born in 1988 who wants to tack the last two numbers of your birth year onto your Twitter handle: Some people might think you’re a neo-Nazi.
The number 88 has been used as code by neo-Nazis, based off of the eighth number of the alphabet: H. 88 meaning HH, meaning heil you-know-hoo. Throw a 14 in front of it for the “14 words,” referring to the phrase, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” and people aren’t going to ever bother asking you if happen to share a birth year with Steph Curry.