Pssst! Good morning, Smarty Pants!
I'm feeling great today!
First of all, it's Friday, which means tomorrow's the weekend!
Do you love Friday too, Smarty Pants?
I heard a lot of yeses!
Yep, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping!
It's gonna be a great day!
I'll just quickly check my calendar to see what I've scheduled today.
Besides recording who's smarted, of course.
Uh oh. Oh no. Um, Smarty Pants?
It seems today is not just any Friday.
It's a special Friday that some people consider bad luck!
Smarty Pants, do you know what Friday is?
Is it not so good Friday?
Gotta go to the dentist Friday?
Or Friday the 13th?
That's right, today is Friday the 13th!
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
Maybe I should just get back into bed and wait until Saturday.
Or maybe you just need to relax.
Um, is my calendar suddenly talking to me?
That's right. I'm the number 13!
And I'm Friday! And even though the two of us together have long been associated with bad things, trust us, trusty narrator!
You don't have any reason to be scared of us.
Smarty Pants, what do you think?
Should I trust them?
I mean, on one hand, Friday the 13th is just a day like any other, but on the other hand, everyone knows Friday the 13th is bad luck, right?
So is Friday the 13th really a bad luck day?
Why are so many people afraid of Friday the 13th?
And how did the number 13 come to be considered an unlucky number?
It's a bad rap, I tell ya!
It's time for another whiff of science and history on...
Who's smarted? Who's smarted?
Who's smart? Is it you?
Is it me? Is it science?
Or history? Listen up, everyone, we've been smarted.
Lots of fun on who's smarted.
You know what's been transforming my daily commute lately?
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Okay, smarty pants, I'm trying to stay calm here, but not only is today Friday the 13th, somehow both the number 13 and the day Friday on my calendar are talking to me.
Of course, as the narrator of Who Smarted, I'm used to weird things talking to me, but it's still mildly unnerving.
Relax narrator, you've got nothing to worry about.
Yes, Friday, you keep saying that, but I don't know if I should believe you.
Smarty pants, does Friday the 13th make you a little nervous?
Raise your hand if it does.
Uh -huh, yeah, I see some hands up.
Trust me, you're not alone.
Did you know many people, including adults, cancel travel plans, reschedule doctor or dental appointments, or even miss work due to a fear of Friday the 13th?
Whoa. So why is that?
Well, speaking for myself, I've been considered bad luck for a really long time.
That's true 13. So what gave you such a bad reputation?
There's many different ideas about it, but some people trace it to a Norwegian myth about 12 gods at a dinner party.
A 13th guest, who wasn't invited, I might add, showed up to crash the party and...
Ooh, let's see if the smarty pants can guess what happened next.
Was there, A, no problems at all, B, not enough dessert for everyone, or C, a huge fight among the gods that caused the entire world to fall into darkness.
Yep, it was C. I'm also sometimes considered a curse number because I come after 12.
Many people see 12 as a number that completes things, so I make them uncomfortable because I'm the unknown.
Makes sense since there's so many things that come in 12, like months in a year, inches in a foot, pairs of ribs in the human body, the 12 labors of Hercules, and of course, the 12 days of Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho. But sometimes when you buy donuts or bagels, you get a baker's dozen with an extra.
In that case, 13 is suddenly lucky.
But most times, 13 just makes people scared.
Smarty pants, have you ever been in a really tall building or skyscraper?
If so, did you notice if the elevator had a 13th floor button?
Chances are, it didn't.
As many as 85 % of the world skyscrapers do not have a 13th floor.
Whoa. I mean, there is a 13th floor, but the numbers just skip from the 12th floor to the 14th.
And many airplanes don't have a 13th row.
Thank you for flying lucky airlines.
We guarantee a safe trip because there's no unlucky 13th row.
Also, we're out of pretzels.
Some street addresses skip the number 13 too.
And some restaurants don't have a 13th table.
How crazy is that? You think that's crazy?
In Paris, a cateresium, French for 14th, is a paid 14th dinner guest who is hired to keep a party safe if there are only 13 guests for dinner.
I'm getting paid to have dinner.
This is very lucky for me.
Wow. What about you, Friday?
Why are you considered bad luck?
It's not fair. You think I'd be super popular because I'm the day before the weekend.
Absolutely. I love Fridays.
Unfortunately, many cultures consider Friday an unlucky day.
For a long time, sailors believed it's bad luck to start a voyage on a Friday.
Ah, great. We're sinking.
I told you not to leave on Friday.
Question, smarty pants.
What helped Freaky Friday and Unlucky 13 team up to become the ultimate bad luck day?
Was it a. A movie, b.
A book, or c. If you said a book, you're right.
In 1907, Thomas W. Lawson wrote a novel called Friday the 13th.
It became a bestseller and along with its popularity came the belief that Friday the 13th was an unlucky day.
Wait, everyone hates us because of one book?
Possibly. So smarty pants, are bad things more likely to happen on Friday the 13th than on other days?
I can answer that. No, it's just a superstition.
Ah, good word, 13. Smarty pants, do you know what a superstition is?
Is it a. The belief that something bad or good will happen even if there's no real reason to think it will?
B. A tradition that goes back a really long time.
Or c. A very powerful stition.
No, a superstition is not a powerful stition.
The answer is a. A belief that something bad or good will happen even if there's no real reason to think it will.
Classic bad superstitions include a broken mirror bringing seven years of bad luck or the fear of black cats.
The truth is in the United States Friday the 13th is believed to be an unlucky day because of superstition.
Are you saying that only people in the United States believe in an unlucky day?
No, I'm saying it's mostly people in the USA that believe Friday the 13th is unlucky.
In Spain, Tuesday the 13th is the bad luck day.
Which makes more sense.
Tuesday seems much unluckier than the day right before the weekend, right?
In Italy, the 17th day of any month is a bad luck day.
The 17th? What's wrong with the 17th?
The Roman numeral for 17 can be rearranged to spell V -I -X -I.
That means my life is over in Latin.
Yikes! Smarty pants, should we all be worried about the 17th day of any month or Tuesday the 13th instead of Friday the 13th?
The answer is no. While some people worry about those dates on the calendar, there's zero proof or evidence that more bad things happen on any of those days.
Exactly! Tell them, Trusty!
But that probably won't stop people from blaming Friday the 13th if something unlucky happens on that day.
Smarty pants, how many times a year does a Friday the 13th occur?
Is it A once, B up to two times, or C up to three times?
If you said C up to three times, good job.
Friday the 13th happens up to three times a year, which isn't good news for people who believe it's bad luck.
That means up to three times a year, some people will avoid doing certain things based on their fear of bad luck on that day.
But Friday the 13th is no more unlucky than any other day.
It might seem a little silly, but there are definitely some people who are really, really afraid of Friday the 13th.
They have a condition called triscidicophobia.
13, care to explain?
Sure, triscidicophobia is the fear of me.
The number 13. The word comes from ancient Greek and translates to exactly what it says, fear of the number 13.
But honestly, I'm not trying to scare anyone.
I'm just a number, the same as any other number.
You don't have to skip over me when you count or anything.
The problem is the Friday the 13th Superstition has been around for such a long time and so many people love to bring it up, whether out of fear or just having fun, but it's probably not going anywhere.
Oh great. Well, at least people like the other 48 to 49 Fridays a year.
And some people even like me.
The number 13. In the late 19th century, Captain William Fowler started a society called the 13 Club to help cure people's bad feelings about the number 13.
Wow, that club sounds pretty cool.
I wonder if anyone famous belonged to that club.
We'll find out right after this quick break.
You know what's been transforming my daily commute lately?
Babbel. I've been dreaming about surprising my German friends when I see them at the holidays by being able to talk with them in their language instead of mine.
And with Babbel's 10 minute lessons, I'm actually going to pull it off this year.
Babbel isn't just easy to use.
You'll be speaking a new language in just three weeks.
What I love is that it's not just memorizing random phrases.
Babbel gets you having real conversations.
Their speech recognition technology is like having a personal tutor right in my pocket.
Now I know there's a lot of options for learning a new language because I've tried most of them, but Babbel is the one that your trusty narrator has found to be the most effective at learning a new language quickly.
Here's what's amazing.
Studies from Yale and Michigan State found that 15 hours with Babbel equals an entire college semester of language learning.
Pretty incredible, right?
Want to give yourself or someone special the gift of language this holiday season?
Here's an exclusive deal for our listeners.
Get up to 60 % off your subscription at babel .com slash smarted.
That's B -A -B -B -E -L dot com slash smarted.
Rules and restrictions may apply.
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Now back to who smarted.
The number 13 has long been considered unlucky, but my new friend 13 is about to tell us about a special club from the late 19th century called the 13 Club.
The 13 Club tried to get people to stop being afraid of me.
After all, I'm just a number.
They would have a 13 course dinner on the 13th day of every month.
Smarty pants. Would you love the number 13 if it meant eating your 13 top favorite foods?
I know I would. They ate this special dinner in room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage, which was owned by the club's founder, Captain William Fowler.
And would you believe four US presidents were members of the 13 Club?
Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and Theodore Roosevelt were all members.
Teddy Roosevelt. Nice.
Unfortunately, his distant cousin, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt or FDR, was so terrified of me, he wouldn't travel on the 13th day of any month or host a dinner with 13 guests.
Wow. I wonder if any celebrities consider 13 a lucky number.
I can think of one.
And she's one of the biggest stars on the planet.
Really? Smarty pants.
Any ideas which super famous person loves the number 13?
Here's a hint. Yeah.
One of my biggest fans is Taylor Swift.
Since her birthday is December 13th, she considers 13 her lucky number.
Oh, and a study from 2008 showed there are actually fewer fires, crimes, and car accidents on Friday the 13th.
Although that might be because people are more cautious and afraid to travel on that day.
Smarty pants, we just want you to know that you don't have to be afraid of the number 13th or Friday, whether we're separate or together.
Exactly. Superstitions are not real and you don't need to worry.
But just in case, I think I'll wear my lucky who's smarted shirt and put on some Taylor Swift.
A fearsome for some shout out to who's smarted super fans, Chris, Lee, Claire, and Evan in Moxville, North Carolina.
Your description was so fun.
I have to read it. You said we love who's smarted because where else can you learn about koala poop, what gummy bears are made of, and if mummies are real.
Oh, well, thanks for smarting with us.
And also I just want to say I love vegetables.
I'm a carrot crazy lettuce lover who goes bananas for beats.
This episode Friday the 13th was written by Sarah superstition sweet and voiced by Kim black cat Davis at the plane Davis max broken mirror Kamaski and Jerry Colburn, technical direction and sound design by Josh knock on wood on who's smarted is recorded and mixed at the relic room studios.
Our associate producer is Max Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian salt over the shoulder Suarez with lyrics written and performed by Adam text Davis who smarted was created and produced by Adam text Davis and Jerry Colburn.
This has been an atomic entertainment production.
