Among The Pythagoreans
The Pythagoreans, an ancient Greek cult of natural philosophers notable for their interest in numerology, personified the natural numbers by assigning gender to them; the odd numbers were male and the even female (Rucker 1988). However, given the prevalence of synesthesia (1 in 23, see the main synesthesia entry), and that this is consistent among the Pythagoreans, this is unlikely to be synesthesia, but rather a form of learned association.
Read more about this topic: Ordinal Linguistic Personification
Famous quotes containing the word pythagoreans:
“You’ll see certain Pythagoreans whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)