Unlucky for Some: The Fear of the Number 13
In many Western cultures, the number 13 is thought of as unlucky.
For most people, it's nothing more than a harmless superstition. But it's also estimated that around 10% of Americans suffer from triskaidekaphobia (TRISS-kai-deka PHO-bee-ah) — the fear of the number 13.
Treiskaideka is Greek for "three and ten," or 13.
One famous sufferer is horror writer Stephen King, who says he refuses to stop reading a book on pages with digits that add up to 13 — pages 94, 193, and so on.
Written examples of being afraid of the number 13 date back to the 1800s, but no one is sure exactly why it became such an unlucky number.
Some believe it comes from Christianity. The 13th guest at the Last Supper is believed to have been Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to his death after the meal.
There's a similar story in Norse mythology, too. At a dinner party in Valhalla with the gods, Loki, the god of mischief, crashed the party as the 13th guest and tricked Hoder, the blind god of darkness, into killing his brother by accident.
Because of this, some consider it unlucky to have 13 guests at a dinner table. In France, for example, people may be paid to come to an event as a 14th guest to avoid any bad luck.
You can see examples of people avoiding the number 13 in other areas of life as well.
Some hotels avoid using the number for their rooms, and tall buildings may be designed without a 13th floor, going from 12 to 14. Many airplanes also don't include the 13th row in their seating maps.
And a survey from Zoopla found that houses in the UK with the number 13 in them sell for around $11,000 less than other houses.
