Seven is my favourite number and has been for as long as I can remember.

Of course, the name of this website came about purely because there are seven members of our blended family, but I like it also because of my love for the number. So, here are seven interesting things about the number seven.

ROYGBIV

Who else remembers ROYGBIV from school? I remember learning that along with, “Richard of York gave battle in vain” and it has stuck with me. Now our children know this. It really does help them to remember the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

Dice

This is another thing I remember doing at school. In a lesson about probability in maths, we had to work out which total was thrown most often when throwing two dice. The noise of dice tumbling over the tables and spilling onto the floor was quite overpowering, but it was a break from the usual monotony of maths lessons. What is special about this then? The number seven is the most often thrown total. As well as that, if you add the two opposite sides of a standard die, you always get 7.

7/7

When I used the word ‘interesting’ in the title, that didn’t necessarily mean in a positive way. On 7th July 2005, a series of coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists devasted London and its people. 52 people were killed and hundreds more injured. Four devices in total were detonated with three on the underground and one on a double-decker bus. 

Dwarfs

Snow White had seven faithful dwarfs helping to take care of her as much as the other way round. It is believed that Walt Disney had a long list of possible names before finally settling on the ones we know. Can you imagine Baldy or Dizzy? Dumpy or Flabby? Cranky or Burpy? We feel grateful he chose Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey in the end.

7 dwarfs

Song Titles

There are more song titles containing numbers than I had really thought about until recently. The following all have the number 7:

  • 7 – Catfish and the Bottlemen
  • 7 Minutes in Heaven – Fall Out Boy
  • 7 Seconds – Youssou N’Dour feat. Neneh Cherry
  • 7 Rings – Ariana Grande
  • 7 Days – Craig David
  • 7 Things – Miley Cyrus
  • 7 Years – Lukas Graham
  • Seven Days in Sunny June – Jamiroquai
  • Seven Days in the Sun – Feeder
  • Seven Months – Portishead
  • Seven Years – Norah Jones

Christianity

The number seven appears a lot within the Christian religion. It is said to be one of the most significant. When God supposedly created the world in six days, he took the seventh as a rest day (I’d love to adopt that attitude, but who gets a rest day when they have kids?). In the New Testament, the number seven represents fulfilment or completion. This is the total of the corners of the earth with the holy trinity. In the book of revelation, the number seven appears several times: churches, angels, seals, trumpets and stars. 

Months

Remember when you learnt at school that ‘oct’ related to the number eight? Octagon? Octopus? You might even have learnt that ‘sept’ related to the number seven. Why then is September the ninth month and October the tenth? Surely, they should be the seventh and eighth. In fact, they used to be. Some say that it was the Romans wanting to name two months after emperors causing this change. July = Julius Caesar and August = Augustus Caesar. Others disagree with part of that. Supposedly, January and February did not exist in the original calendar. The names for the 7th and 8th months were replaced with the ones honouring the Roman rulers. Whatever the reason, it sure is confusing!

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