“I’m not superstitious… but I am a little stitious.” – Michael Scott (The Office)

Pink used to be the “boy’s color.” It wasn’t until the 1940’s that pink became the expected color for baby girls, and blue became the color for boys.¹ Thus, the “Pink and Blue” stereotype has annoyed people for decades. Sometimes the most pointless things also seem to be the hardest to change… However, they came into being arbitrarily, didn’t they?

So if “baby color” associations changed arbitrarily, why can’t our associations with Friday the 13^th?

No one knows where the superstition began in our culture, but it goes back a ways. "I was born on a Friday, December 13th, 1813 from which come all of my misfortunes". – Les Finesses des Gribouilles (1834).²

So it’s engrained, to say the least.

But “engrained in our mind” is just that: it’s in our mind. If something is actually true, then it’s universally true. Friday the 13^th isn’t. For example, in Greece, they have no issues with Friday the 13^th. In fact, it’s Tuesday the 13^th they don’t like.³ The difference is just cultural; i.e., Constantinople was conquered twice, two hundred years apart—but on Tuesday the 13^th both times. Furthermore, the Greek word for “13” is triti (for the third day of the week) and bad luck is reputed to “come in threes.” Better yet, Italian culture has shunned Friday the 17^th for so long that, to this day, some Italian airplanes still don’t have a seat row 17.²

Engrained thoughts can be hard to overcome, even when they’re a foundationless superstition (or a little stition.) You may be surprised to learn that doctors can be quite superstitious about their surgeries. Some think that palpating a CABG graft ensures good flow, when in fact the “snappiest” pulse is often caused by stenosis, which reduces flow.

Fortunately Transonic has been tearing down surgical superstitions since we built our first flowprobe in the 1980’s. Our tech measures flow directly, no proxies, no guesses, no superstitions. We offer cold, hard flow data to confirm a surgeon’s excellent work, and to provide legal backup in case of adverse outcome for some other reason.

So always use a Transonic flow probe.

(Just remember to throw some salt over your shoulder first…)

Just kidding, but as always, thanks for reading,

               Transonic Systems, Inc 

                        The Measure of Better Results

References:

1. Gendered associations of pink and blue - Wikipedia
2. Friday the 13th - Wikipedia
3. Why Superstitious Greeks Fear Tuesday the 13th - GreekReporter.com