From David Pogue’s column in today’s New York Times, about the new PalmOne device, the Tungsten 5. First of all, what happened to the T4? Answer: There never was one. Turns out the word “four” sounds like the word for death in some Asian languages.Is this true? It sounds like the old “Nova” and “wax tadpole” urban legends.
*Which * Asian language?
They’re as different as the European languages, if not more.
I should have added, it’s not Hindi, in which the words could be
“moth”, “dehant”, and a few others which don’t sound like four.
I don’t know the answer for sure, but I can tell you the hotel I stay at in Vancouver BC, which has a huge Asian population mostly from Hong Kong, has no 4th, 13th, or 14th floor.
True. In Mandarin, the word “four” is pronounced “si,” with a falling tone. The word “dead” is pronounced the same.
I can’t speak for other Asian languages.
I heard the same vague assertion (the word for “four” sounds like the word for “death” in some language, maybe Chinese???) on Antiques Roadshow when the guy was explaining why a set of plates was not complete as a set of four but had probably started out as a set of five or ten plates.
Well, that wasn’t very helpful, sorry about that.
On preview, I see Ravenman has already answered. Too slow again and still not that helpful.
True.
I remember many hotels in China not having a 4th floor for this reason (although this was 10 years ago so things might have changed)
My Chinese parents are also very superstitious about license plates - there are certain combinations of numbers that are supposedly bad luck. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is 164 which I think means “one road to death”.
As far as my recollection of the language goes, in Cantonese, “death” and “four” are indeed both pronounced “sei”, albeit with different tones.
Also true in Japanese. Both are “shi.” However my dictionary shows 75 words with this same sound.
True or not, it seems a silly reason to avoid the word. We don’t fret about misuse of the singular of ‘dice’, do we?
Oooh! What words are they? And can you make a meaningful sentence using only those words?
On a more serious note: Is Japanese noted for having multiple words with substantially similar pronunciations? Even with words having multiple definitions, I can’t think of any English syllable having so many meanings.
Certainly seems like the marketing department got this one right, then, particularly if you add the “the number 4=bad luck” idea.
In many asian countries superstition is very strong.
In Hong Kong, you can’t get people to rent or open offices in a building if a Feng Shui expert was not consulted in it’s design or build phases.
We hardly ever use it… 
Some buildings buildings in the US don’t have 13th floors too. Same thing.
It works the other way round too. “Soi” is Cantonese for water and also slang for money. So water features are seen as good, and fishtanks abound in offices.
From my study of the Japanese language (ie, watching lots of subtitled anime 
) Japanese to chock full of homonyms. This of course leads to lots of puns, which are noted in anime for being hard to translate.
In case anyone wanted to tell this fact at a party or something, note that the “si” spelling here is Pinyin, which is the official romanization scheme in China but does not sound the way that most people would read it out loud.
It’s pronounce something more like “suh”, and if you want to be extra authentic, try moving the “-uh” sound to the back of the throat.
And note that the “dead” usage has a “dipping” tone rather than a falling tone. So while it has the same pronunciation, it’s not actually a homonym in Mandarin.
The opposite is 8 which sounds like prosperity.
One some blocks you will see the following addresses: 88A, 88B, 88C, …
License plates are a big deal. You can sell one with lots of 8’s for big bucks.
Haj
Yes - Japanese is phonetically quite simple, which makes it easier when you first start studying it and more difficult later because of all the homophones.
Shi is actually one of quite a number of Japanese words for four (most of which start with the root yon-), but it’s just enough that traditionally, Japanese products are never grouped in fours - usually five instead.
:smack: Yeah, my Chinese is getting rusty. This is entirely correct.