What is it about the number 13?

Question

1.If no13 is unlucky for some..is it lucky for the others?

2. why is 13 known as a 'bakers dozen'?

3. do you have any no13 superstitions or fears?

best answer for 10!!

Answer 1

1. No else they would have said unlucky for all...

2. Cos bakers used to put an extra bun in the dozen as a goodwill gesture.

3. No

...and 13 was considered unlucky as Judas was the 13th disciple.

Answer 2

The number 13 is a number of lucky if

leave the lottery.You don't think?

Answer 3

13 is the number of people at the last supper (Jesus and his 12 disciples).

In Olde England if you asked a baker for 12 bread rolls and he gave you 11 by mistake he could get a hand chopped off and so he used to give you 13 just in case.

Answer 4

well, 13 is my lucky number, its a state of mind.

its a bakers dozen because the baker would always cook one for himself as well.

and nope, none what soever.

right, picture this, friday the 13th is supposedly unlucky, right?

sunday being the sabbath, any month starting on the sabbath has friday the 13th.

there are 7 days in a week, friday is the 6th day (weeks start on a sunday) add them together.. waddya get?

ahh well hope this helps and blessed be.

Answer 5

I dont think anyone cares about numbers

Answer 6

Thre are many reasons that it is considered unlucky but the most prolific is that there were 13 people at the last supper, also there are 13 twists in a hangmans knot.

13 was a bakers dozen because they gave 13 loaves instead of 12 to avoid bein accused of selling underweight.

I have no superstitions but noticabley on the street where I live there is no number 13.

Answer 7

13 can be lucky for some  and unlucky for others

its just like any other number e.g. japan says 4 is unlucky???

Answer 8

i have done a little research and this is what i have the following information from answerbag:

There are many explanations. One explanation is that the number 13 brings bad luck because there were 13 people present at "The Last Supper" in the Bible. Another story comes from Norse mythology. One of the nastiest Norse gods, "Loki", crashed a party at "Valhalla." Valhalla was the "banquet hall of the gods." There were 12 guests present at the hall until Loki arrived. With the mean-spirited Norse god as the 13th guest, the affair turned grim. The story goes that "Balder", "the god of light, joy, and reconciliation", died when Loki tricked Balder's

sightless brother Hod into throwing mistletoe at him. Just like Kryptonite to Superman, Mistletoe, you see, was the only thing on earth that could kill Balder.

The famous mystery writer Agatha Christie (1890-1976) actually capitalized on the superstition that surrounds the number 13 when she penned 13 short stories and put them in a book titled, "The Thirteen Problems" in 1933. Each story featured her busybody sleuth, "Miss Jane Marple." Christie did it again when she wrote the mystery, "Thirteen at Dinner", which starred Peter Ustinov and Faye Dunaway. It hit the movie screen in 1985.

Whether 13 is actually an unlucky number or not will forever remain a mystery. There are many truths about the number 13, though. For example, it is a prime number. That means that it is only divisible -without there being a remainder- by the number 1 and itself. It is also a "Fibonacci Number." A Fibonaci Number can be defined as "a number that is the sum of the two preceding numbers." If you begin with 0 and 1, the sequence would run 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,45,79, and so on.

hope this helps x

Answer 9

1. 13 is just as lucky and unlucky as any other number is to people. cause its just a superstition that its unlucky.

2. i presume a baker can quite easily afford to give away a little extra bread so with a bakers dosen you get a little extra.

3. no

Answer 10

Though I wasn't able to do as thorough a study of crosscultural number significance as I would have liked--the Straight Dope Field Survey Team preferred to be read to from The Cat in the Hat--what I've seen suggests that in ancient times 13 either was considered in a positive light or, more commonly, wasn't considered at all. I note, for example, that the Gnostics of the early Christian era totted up 13 Conformations of the Holy Beard. The significance of the Holy Beard is not entirely clear to me, but I gather it's something you wanted on your side. Thirteen was also once associated with the Epiphany by mainstream Christians, the Christ child having received the Magi on his thirteenth day of life.

But 13's stock dropped like a rock in the middle ages. The proximate cause of this apparently was the observation that Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, made 13 at the table. Other great medieval minds, I read here, pointed out that "the Jews murmured 13 times against God in the exodus from Egypt, that the thirteenth psalm concerns wickedness and corruption, that the circumcision of Israel occurred in the thirteenth year," and so on.

Pretty thin excuse for maligning a number that never meant any harm, you may think. I agree. We must inquire further, and if we do we conclude that while open hostility to 13 may be relatively recent, folks have had their suspicions about it for quite a while. Thirteen is a prime; primes have always attracted attention (compare 7). What's worse, 13 is one past 12, the dozen, almost universally regarded as a perfect number, signifying harmony and all good things. Thirteen, by contrast, is a number of transgression, taking matters one step too far, turning harmony into discord.

A bit of a stretch? Maybe. But consider how often 13s seem to intrude on our tidy arrangements of 12. In many a twelvemonth, to use an old term, there are 13 full moons, and a woman on a 28-day menstrual cycle will be "unclean," as Leviticus has it, 13 times a year. The moon has long been a female symbol, and the full moon, (male) chroniclers tell us, is when (female) witches fly. I hesitate on that evidence alone to ascribe triskaidekaphobia to the fell hand of the patriarchy. But 13's bad reputation may have more to do with fear of women, witchcraft, and disorder than is commonly supposed.

(interesting stuff)

I find myself wondering why is the 13th only really unlucky when its on a friday?... who started that one off then!

Answer 11

no none at all

mind you I do believe in Karma

Answer 12

love this question. The fear of the number thirteen is called treiskadigaphobia. It is considered unlucky because there were thirteen people round the table at the last supoper. However it is lucky for me because I am number 7 of thirteen children. Which is supposed to be holy and blessed. The bakers dozen comes from the fact that the baker often put in an extra slice if he liked you so thats why it is considered lucky for some!!!!

Answer 13

Number 13 has been regarded unlucky since 1760BC, yes, BEFORE  Christ.

Talking of Christ, 13 disciples at the last supper, Judas, who betrayed Jesus was the 13th to sit at the table. I think that's why it's unlucky.

There are only 12 months, not 13.

There is not gate 13 in any scottish airport, instead they have 12B.

Just stuff like that.

Answer 14

13 is just a number. people are idiots everywhere. Some don't like 4 in asian countries because it sounds like the word death. So they have no 4th floors or any floor with a 4 in it. I am not superstitious but somethings are just true.  

Answer 15

2. In the old days if someone bought 12 loaves the baker would throw in another for free ie a baker's dozen is 13!