Every culture has a number considered unlucky because of superstitions. In the United States it's 13. In South Korea, it's four.
The reason behind the fear of the number four, known as tetraphobia, lies in the way it sounds. The Korean word for "four" sounds much like their word for "death."
Eun Yang
Tetraphobia is fairly common across many Asian cultures and far surpasses Western propensity to triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13. The superstition permeates through many aspects of society in these cultures. Many elevators in South Korea, for instance, skip the number four or use the letter "F" in place of the number four to represent the fourth floor.
Americans competing in Pyeongchang are learning that you don't need to believe in the "curse of four" to be doomed by the single-digit menace. And given these Team USA athletes' results at the 2018 Winter Games, they may leave South Korea with their own fear of four.
Mikaela Shiffrin — Alpine Skiing, Slalom In her signature event, defending Olympic slalom gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin finished fourth just a day after winning gold in the giant slalom. She was also wearing the No. 4 bib.
Ben Ferguson — Snowboarding, Halfpipe Ben Ferguson finished on the podium in three of the four Olympic-qualifying contests, and he was the first U.S. men’s halfpipe rider to qualify for the 2018 games. But after posting a big score in the halfpipe qualifying and easily advancing to the finals, Ferguson, wearing bid No. 4, finished just off the podium in fourth place.
Lindsey Jacobellis — Snowboarding, Snowboard Cross Lindsey Jacobellis, the most decorated women’s snowboard cross athlete ever,recorded a fourth-place finish at her fourth Olympics, also donning the No. 4 bib.
Maddie Mastro — Snowboarding, Halfpipe Wearing bib No. 4, the young American snowboarder had a disappointing end to her Olympic debut, crashing out three times in the women’s halfpipe finals to finish 12th out of 12 women in the finals.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle — Alpine Skiing, Men's Combined In his Olympic debut,Ryan Cochran-Siegle clipped a gate during the combined downhill and wiped out. The25-year-old was also wearing bib No. 4.
The Americans aren't the only ones impacted by the "curse of four." These Athletes from other Western countries who donned the No. 4 bib during their competition may also have been jinxed.
Austrian Stephanie Brunner — Alpine Skiing, Giant Slalom Stephanie Brunner crashed in her first run of the giant slalom and failed to finish.
Australian Britteny Cox — Freestyle Skiing, Women's Moguls The defending world champion in women’s moguls finished 5th.
Dutch Ireen Wuest — Speedskating, Women's 100m The most decorated speed skater in Olympic history skated in the fourth pair and finished 9th in the women’s 1000m. A day earlier, Wust won gold in the women's 1500m. She skated in starting pair No. 11 in that event.
Kazakhstani Denis Ten — Figure Skating, Men's Short Program A bronze medalist in Sochi, Ten skated fourth in Friday’s men’s figure skating short program and finished 27th, failing to advance to the free skate event.
Sweden's Hanna Falk- Cross-Country, Women's Sprint Classic After finishing first in her heat at the quarterfinals and third in the semifinals, Falk came in fourth in the finals of the women's sprint classic.
As for Shiffrin’s gold in giant slalom on Thursday, she was wearing bib No.7, a lucky number in South Korea.
The number 4 sounds like the hanja for "death" (사) (although Korean has no tones), so the floor number 4 or room number 4 is almost always skipped in hospitals, funeral halls, and similar public buildings.
The number 4 (四, pinyin: sì; Cantonese Yale: sei) is sometimes considered an unlucky number particularly in Cantonese because the way it is pronounced in the Cantonese dialect is nearly hom*ophonous to the word "death" (死 pinyin: sǐ; Cantonese Yale: séi).
Every culture has a number considered unlucky because of superstitions. In the United States it's 13. In South Korea, it's four. The reason behind the fear of the number four, known as tetraphobia, lies in the way it sounds. The Korean word for "four" sounds much like their word for "death."
FOUR is an unlucky number in China. The Chinese word for FOUR sounds like "death". Many Chinese people do not want the number FOUR in their house number or phone number. But: FOUR is a lucky number in Europe, North America and Australia.
The number 13 is considered an unlucky number in some countries. The end of the Mayan calendar's 13th Baktun was superstitiously feared as a harbinger of the apocalyptic 2012 phenomenon. Fear of the number 13 has a specifically recognized phobia, triskaidekaphobia, a word first recorded in 1911.
That's how many Americans admit it would bother them to stay on one particular floor in high-rise hotels: the 13th. According to the Otis Elevator Co., for every building with a floor numbered “13,” six other buildings pretend to not have one, skipping right to 14.
The reason for this belief is deeply rooted in Korean culture and language. In Korean, the number 4 is pronounced as “sa,” which sounds similar to the Korean word for death, also pronounced as “sa.” This hom*ophonic association has led to the belief that the number 4 is associated with death and bad luck.
Background: The numbers 4, 14 and 24 are associated with death for Cantonese-speaking Chinese people, as the words for these numbers sound like the words for "death", "must die" and "easy to die", respectively.
In some Asian languages, like Chinese and Japanese, the number 4 is actually a hom*onym for the word “death.” As a result, most Asian companies avoid using these numbers entirely.
4 is so deeply associated with bad luck that it is often referred to as the “unlucky number” in China. Consequently, many people actively seek to avoid it in their daily lives, especially in matters related to health and well-being.
Similar to many Asian cultures, specific numbers are said to be associated with luck and prosperity. In Korea, numbers like 8, 9, and 3 are often considered lucky.
Koreans find the number 4 unlucky because it is associated with death. Numbers 3, 8 and 9 are considered lucky numbers, according to the blog, 90 Day Korean.
Perhaps part of the answer lies in a seminal paper published in 1956 by the psychologist George A Miller called “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”. Miller claims that it is more than just coincidence that the number 7 seems to be all around us.
Four is the sacred number of the Zia, an indigenous tribe located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The Chinese, the Koreans, and the Japanese are superstitious about the number four because it is a hom*onym for "death" in their languages. In Slavic mythology, the god Svetovid has four heads.
777 is used on most slot machines in the United States to identify a jackpot. As it is considered a lucky number, banknotes with a serial number containing 777 tend to be valued by collectors and numismatists. The US Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing sells uncirculated 777 $1 bills for this reason.
But the number four is considered unlucky because it sounds a lot like the word for “death,” and as a result Chinese buildings often lack a fourth floor (just as American buildings sometimes skip the 13th).
Nowadays, seven has been adopted as a lucky number in Korea. Traditionally, the number three was considered good luck. In Korea, the number 4 is considered to be bad luck. It goes even further; this number is believed to symbolize death itself.
After the Korean War, red came to be perceived as the color of communism, thus gaining a negative connotation, but since the 2002 World Cup, it has become a symbol of passion and the color that promotes social cohesion.
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