Church offers to pay $1 more to avoid $666 bill

[pstokely]

Source: KSHB


KEARNEY, Mo. - You don't often hear of anyone asking to pay more to a government agency. But a church in Kearney did just that to avoid paying a $666 fee for a building permit.
At City Hall, they couldn't believe it when they first saw the number.

"I called my community development director and said ‘hey check this out!’ and he said ‘add that up again,'" recalled building inspector Chad Coffelt.

They did the math several times to make sure, but there was no mistake. The bill was correct; the church owed $666 for a permit to build a small addition.




Read more: http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/region_missouri/church-offers-to-pay-more-to-avoid-666-bill#ixzz2N0sttYxa

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

1. It seems to me they should do one of two things

1. Laugh it off as a bizarre coincidence that it is.
2. take it as a sign from God that they should not build the addition.

Paying an extra dollar does not somehow make it not have happened.

[Downwinder]

2. John Q. Public has to pay the fee but Churches get it waived.

[talkingmime]

3. I expected that to be a story from The Onion. It's sort of silly when you think about it.

A lot of buildings in the US don't have 13th floors and I've been told that many buildings in Korea don't have any floors with the number 4 in them - including the entire 40th to 49th floors. Well, technically the floors are there, they just aren't numbered that way. I guess that's their equivalent of 13 or something. But hey, I doubt city hall minded the extra dollar.

[dsc]

4. the word for four and the word for death in Korean are very similar

I think spelled the same but pronounced differently. So it is worse than our phobia of 13.

[talkingmime]

6. Well there are multiple translations of both (context), but I didn't see chung-um under four.

Frankly, none of the contexts matched up. I'll have to ask my Korean friends about it. Perhaps I got it wrong. And I use "nyet" for four. Hana, tool, set, nyet...

Which spelling are you referring to?

[dsc]

7. I admit to not knowing myself I had just read it

Here is one place

http://lauraberwick.hubpages.com/hub/Korean-Cultural-Beliefs

Many Korean buildings, especially the older ones do not have a fourth floor as the number four in Chinese-Korean numbering is similar to the word for death and is therefore considered to be bad luck.

[talkingmime]

9. I figured it out. They're using the cardinal number 사 which can also mean a eulogy.

Nyet (or net) is ordinal. It sort of makes sense since we usually say "fourth floor" not "floor four". And just as an aside, writing people's names in red ink is also taboo - associated with death like a pirate's black spot.

Edit: Sorry. I didn't provide the way to say it. 사 is pronounced "sa".

[mokawanis]

5. The story reminded me of a fundamentalist I knew

Who wouldn't order pizza from Pizza Pit because there was a depiction of the devil on the box.

[FarCenter]

8. $666 is the mark of City Hall? Where is that written?