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4 is a bad number because it sounds like “death.” Tall buildings tend to omit floors 4, 14, etc., the way tall buildings in the US often omit floor 13. Amusing
by mikeash 7y ago
4 is a bad number because it sounds like “death.”
Tall buildings tend to omit floors 4, 14, etc., the way tall buildings in the US often omit floor 13. Amusingly, Chinese building often omit 13 as well. So you might be on floor 15 and only really be on floor 12 because 4, 13, and 14 are all left out.
Less dire numeric associations are 55 for crying (pronounced “wuwu”) and 88 for bye-bye (“baba”).