No house number 4?

[question everything]

The following letter is published in the Irvine (CA) World News. Irvine has a high Asian population.

Superstitions swaying city officials?

(snip)

While walking among the new homes I noticed that the new house numbers on two streets went 2, 6, 8, 10 (skipping 4). I asked the developer why he had skipped the number 4 and he told me that the city of Irvine Planning Department had told him not to use the number 4 because in some cultures it is associated with an unpleasant occurrence. That statement triggered my curiosity and I began to research superstitions about numbers.

Of course, we all know about 13 being an unlucky number. But there are hundreds of homes in Irvine numbered 13 (my own included).

The word for 4 in Japanese apparently sounds the same as the word for death, so they consider it unlucky. Why, then, do we allow the number 9, which in Japanese sounds like the word for “torture?” Or the number 17, which when written in Roman numerals is the same as the Italian words “I lived,” connoting that one is no longer living?

When I was in the military we considered 3 to be unlucky, as in “three on a match,” which arose from the habit of soldiers lighting three cigarettes from the same match, giving away their position in the darkness. And we get “seven years bad luck for breaking a mirror.”

Christians, I am told, have a problem with the combination of 666 and Koreans with 44. Many Asians won’t walk into a house where the front and back doors are in a straight line, because the feng shui is wrong, allowing evil spirits to move freely throughout the house. And bathtubs not oriented properly in relationship to the front door?

(snip)

http://epaper.ocregister.com/Default/Client.asp?enter=true&skin=OCW&Daily=OCWIrvineWorldNews

Page 20

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. Well...

I don't see the harm in it, frankly.

I don't consider myself at all superstitious..but you know what? I'd have a problem living in number 666 myself!

[hunter]

10. Ronald Reagan lived on 666 St. Cloud Street in Bel Air, California

He and Nancy had the number changed to 668.

[SpiralHawk]

2. 4 is the sacred number of this Turtle Island continent

now called North America. "Four" may have peculiar connotations in Asia, but on this land it has been Good Medicine for 40,000 years or more.

[Hobarticus]

3. Best t-shirt ever: "667....the neighbor of the beast"

Bought it for a friend, and he wears it when mowing the lawn.

[Gruenemann]

8. Across the street neighbor

Next door would be 664 or 668.

[Hobarticus]

12. Gee, uh, thanks. n/t

[Blue Diadem]

4. Never heard about the front door/back door alignment

Mine is like that. :scared: It does make for a nice breeze though..

I remember many years ago when they put in the 666 telephone numbers in our area..people had fits over it. Didn't change anything..but they had fits over it.

[question everything]

5. Many years ago we had a tour of New Orleans

and this front door back door alignment apparently was a favorite for when you are chasing someone with a shotgun...

[tx_dem41]

6. In fact, its called a "shotgun house". n/t

[question everything]

7. LOL. Thanks for the info (nt)

[Blue Diadem]

11. I'd heard of shotgun houses but never knew that's what it meant

Ours is an old farmhouse..1800's. Wonder if it was for the same reason.

[Gruenemann]

9. Uhh...I'm not fluent in Italian...

But the Roman numeral for 17 would be XVII, which I seriously doubt is "I lived" in Italian.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. It Doesn't

In classical italian, Vii would be the past tense of a form of the verb "to live". Hence, this would make sense it he said "7". But, nobody actually uses that form of the word anyway. So, it's not really a good example.
The Professor