h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Surely it's like anything and there's a possibility. OK, so you're not likely to go and blow up a building coz of some superstition. But surely a superstition can lead to levels of OCD and major behavioural changes?

Like the one about stepping on the cracks in the pavement. You start off avoiding the lines in paving slabs, then you find you can't go into certain shops etc because they have a tiled floor.

Maybe, but only if taken to the extreme.

Yeah. All sounds a biy silly at times, even when not extreme. But if it gets really bad, then it can't be good really. can't have something like that taking over and impinging of what you can do.

Absolutely superstitions could be dangerous. For example, if you toss a pinch of salt over your shoulder into another person's eye, you could avoid the supposedly bad luck of spilling salt and incur the worse luck of torquing someone.

Definately doesn't sound like much luck for the person behind you.

Now the "don't walk under a ladder" makes sense, not because ladders are unlucky, but because the person working at the top of the ladder could accidently drop a hammer or something.

Never heard the one about saluting a bird before. I do however chat amiably to the wildlife whose territory overlaps mine, to let them know I mean no harm.

Though there's a difference between not walking under a ladder or opening an umbrella indoors for safety reasons, and not doing it for fear of bad luck.

Like I opened my umbrella in work to leavce it to dry and so,eone almost went mad coz it'd be unlucky. Dunno what was suposed to happen though.

Don't know about the umbrella one either. The few times in my life I've bothered to use an umbrella, I've brought it indoors, taken it into the bath, opened it and left dripping in the tub.

Mostly when we get rain, we get wind too, and umbrellas are just too much trouble in the wind.

Oh yeah, wind and rain are a terrible combination. Have lost several umbrellas to wind in the past couple of years. And what's worse is that it was the first time I'd used them when they broke.

Maybe it is all a trick of language, how these superstitions get started. Maybe someone says something like, "Hey, you can suffer a misfortune if you walk under a ladder" in an effort to alert an unobservant pedestrian to the hazards of falling objects. Or, "Goodness, don't open that umbrella in here, the consequences could be unfortunate," meaning that the flower vase or lamp was in danger of being broken. And the person listening to the admonition did not understand the usage of "misfortune" or "unfortunate" outside of the idea of "unlucky."

In that sense, a crossing your path is only "unlucky" if you have the misfortune to trip over her.

Perhaps. One of those things where there's maybe a practical real reason for doing/not doing something, but it's kinda been twisted.