Cultural common sense about numbers

We in China think these figures are unlucky:

There are three besides four.

Have you noticed those idioms, such as picky, forgetful, evasive and so on? These idioms with "three" and "four" are all derogatory. Why do idioms derogate from "three" and "four"? Looking through the idiom dictionary, we find that this problem exists not only in idioms with three or four numbers, but also in idioms with three or four numbers. As long as we meet, it's basically more derogatory and less positive.

Such as "three long and two short", "half-hearted" and "three days fishing and two days drying the net", are these three problems?

How to explain these language phenomena, let's learn from common sense.

In the traditional culture of China, "three" is a very special number, which often indicates the limit of the number, that is, it has come to an end.

The Tao Te Ching says, "Give birth to two, give birth to three, give birth to three." Let alone three, infinity will follow.

"Cao Gui Debate" also said: "One effort, then decline, three times fatigue." How about four? I won't.

There is also a folk saying called "time and again", which means that people can forgive one or two mistakes, but the third time is the limit of tolerance.

We say "repeatedly", not "again four". People in China like to talk about things with "three", as if mentioning "three" means mentioning all the numbers. In addition, China people's habit is to like pairs, like the whole five and ten, and "three" is odd, irregular, irregular and unstable, so traditionally people used to use "three" to refer to some bad things.

Over time, idioms with "three" have more and more derogatory meanings and less and less positive meanings.