Talk:Thirteenth floor

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This article has a link to "Floor 13", however, Floor 13 is a re-direct page. Can we fix this?? 66.245.17.129 14:55, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

User_talk:Alerante
Fixed. [ alerante | “” 20:38, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC) ]


Contents

[edit] There is always a Thirteenth Floor

The floor is always there if the building is tall enough. The 13th floor might be named by a number such as 12, 13, 14, 15, or even 16 depending on the country:

1st  2nd  3rd  4th  5th ... 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 

1    2    3    4    5   ... 10   11   12   13   14 

1    2    3    4    5   ... 10   11   12   14   15 

1    2    3    5    6   ... 11   12   13   15   16 

1    2    3    5    6   ... 11   12   15   16   17 

0    1    2    3    4   ...  9   10   11   12   13 

0    1    2    3    4   ...  9   10   11   12   14 

0    1    2    3    5   ... 10   11   12   13   15 

0    1    2    3    5   ... 10   11   12   15   16

etc

No, the 13th floor is often incorrectly numbered 14 or 12A as mentioned in the article, due to superstitious bullshit being taken so seriously. Idiocyncracy? Sure is!! What a joke! This is superstition taken way too far, and way too seriously! Are people that irrational that they won't have a 13th floor in a building?!! 202.161.13.218 08:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What if...

the building that was added recently had a 15th floor?? Would they number it 13 or 14?? 66.245.102.55 22:47, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Well I never knew this thing about missing the 13th floor in the US. Amazing. And you call us Brits crazy. Mintguy (T) 00:55, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are crazy. You would have a hard time finding a building in the U.S. without a thirteenth floor.

Here in Australia there are buildings without a 13th floor. THAT is what I call crazy. I really can't understand why they take superstitious garbage so seriously!! 202.161.13.218 12:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thirteenth row

... ever been on a plane with a thirteenth row? :)

[edit] Almost identical paragraphs

From the article:

In Hong Kong some buildings would omit 4th, 14th, 24th, etc floor as the number 4 sounds like death in Cantonese, but the rule is varied.

(...)

Similarly, new buildings in some parts of China omit the fourth (as well as the 14th, 24th, etc.) floors, as the figure "four" sounds like "death" in Mandarin, the predominant dialect for the country, and most other Chinese dialects.

Pretty much the same info, but which of these two paragraphs should be gone? Does this just occur in Hong Kong or in China? Does it sound like death in Cantonese or in Mandarin? --Conti|✉ 19:12, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

The pronunciation of "four" and "death" are very similar in both Cantonese and in Mandarin. Near Homonyms are used in informal conversation quite frequently in Cantonese. Often near homonyms are regarded as omens.

I doubt that buildings in Hong Kong would skip any floor with 4, given the little amount of area allowed to build the high-rises needed to house that many people in such a small piece of land. Government housing often goes up to 40 stories now, and a decade ago they had not skipped any floors, despite the fact that the older generations are more superstitious. Although I left 10 years ago I have not recall anyone telling me that it is indeed the case. However, not all variation with "four" makes a coherent "curse", if you will. "Four" sounds like death. "Fourteen" ("ten" "four" if you want to be phonetic about it) sounds like must die, and "Twenty four" sounds like prone to die. Instead of skipping floors, it would be harder to find people with high risk jobs (such as emergency service, construction) living in such floors. In a culural clash against "thirteenth floor", said people with high risk jobs prefer "three", "thirteen" and "twenty three". "three" sounds like live, or reproduce, depending on context; "thirteen" sounds like must live, and "twenty three" sounds like likely to live. It should be now clear that the 34th cloor does not contain the same meaning as the thirteenth floor, and I supposed not regarded as some sort of bad omen.

Yeah, I agree that needs some sourcing. Many identical sounds in Chinese dialects represent completely different words. While the word for "four" may sound superficially similar to the word for death, so does the Chinese word for government department, and I don't see any government departments changing their name. Additionally, while the sounds are the same, the Hanzi are completely different. 59.38.32.5 (talk) 00:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anaheim Hilton relevant?

The only hotel I've been to that does have a 13th floor but not a 10th floor.This is because the room numbers are used in telephone numbers and dialing "1" and "0" has unwanted effects.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 21:59, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The Intercontinental in New York City has a 13th floor; I am there right now. -Baphomet V (talk) 23:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Base Jumping

Why “particularly in reference to BASE jumping”? What's so special about base jumping that it gets a mention? --dahamsta 15:57, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

BASE jumpers may miscalculate the height of a building, thinking that it's higher than it actually is... however, I don't think that a BASE jumper wouldn't research a jump, and that one extra floor would make much of a difference to when he decides to pull the chord (unless the 13th floor has a height of something like 80 metres). I've never been BASE jumping so I can't make any qualified claims. Any experienced BASE jumpers know whether one floor would make much of a difference? 02:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
It might make some difference, particularly in a shorter building - if you were to jump off a "15 story" building that only really had 14 (or even 13 floors, depending on the numbering system) you'd have a pretty high chance of injuring yourself, but jumping from a 50 story building that floor won't make any difference at all. Far more dangerous is the habit of skipping 4s, as that building with "16" floors really only has 13, which makes a large difference. However, jumping off a building that short is very dangerous anyway. Most likely though, you'd not kill yourself by being off by 10 feet. It'd probably be more dangerous to a bungee jumper, who might make the wrong assumption about cord length. Titanium Dragon 11:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French translation

I went to the French interwiki and copy-pasted the text into a section of http://dictionary.reference.com that allows you to translate languages into English. It appeared to talk mostly about a "13th stage". Why?? Georgia guy 00:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

'Etage' in French means both stage and floor. In English 'stage' used to mean 'floor' too, but this usage is now obsolete. --HappyDog 00:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 113th floor

What is about the 113th floor? --84.61.34.248 11:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there are any American buildings that go that high. (Anyone who can prove me wrong feel free to let me know.) Georgia guy 23:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which countries?

Should this article have some information on which countries have a tradition of "skipping" the thirteenth floor? In Russian superstitions, the number 13 has no significance one way or the other, for instance. A lot of buildings in Toronto, Canada (where I now live) skip the 13th floor and I assume in America this is the case as well. What about other countries? Esn 06:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

In France, We usually have a 13th floor (I never see a missing floor). 152.81.12.56 15:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of buildings with uninhabited Thirteenth floors?

One Candada Square is given as a linked example, but no information is provided in that wikipeida entry. Source? Can other examples be provided? (Surely there is a list of such things on a conspiracy theory site somewhere!)

Have added request for reference tag. 216.9.243.104 13:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi. When I was walking along Totenham court road in London, I notticed that Euston tower seemed to have a floor solely dedicated to pipes and airducts which are clearly visable through the row of windows. I then notticed that this was actually the 13th floor. Rather strange.81.156.34.204 16:30, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Machinery

  • Most buildings in the US that skip the 13th floor actually do have a thirteenth floor; the floor consists of the ventilation systems, heating and air conditioning, elevator controls, etc. It is logical to put the machinery somewhere around the 13th floor and because of the superstition, skiping floor 13 was reinforced; a floor is not skipped because of the number 13, it was merely decided to place the machinery floor on the thirteenth floor. I have no evidence for this, but if anyone else does, then put it in. Bredd13 23:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Truth of article

The article claims that there are lots of buildings in the U.S. without a thirteenth floor, even giving the impression that almost all buildings skip it. Yet I have lived in the U.S. for 23 years and have never once noticed a missing thirteenth floor. Perhaps I've just gone to the wrong buildings, but the article provides no evidence or references to convince me otherwise. It would be nice if somebody could either compile such references, or rewrite the article to say that it is a superstition without lots of evidence. Just because everybody knows buildings don't have thirteenth floors doesn't actually mean it's true. 140.77.241.11 17:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It is actually pretty rare; I've been in a few, but most buildings do have a 13th floor. Titanium Dragon 11:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Government Buildings

Every government building (of sufficient height) that I have seen HAS a thirteenth (so numbered) floor. LorenzoB 00:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)