Hi all,
For those of you who take time to respond to the inane Q’s,thank you all;for those of who don’t,well to each his own.And to those of you who crib abt it,well Sucks to u guys!
This time there’s a new(?) angle in the Brit/American war(of sorts)-I’ve heard that the numbering of floors in bldgs (or lifts) is different in UK vis-a-vis in USA,as in they have a Ground/Zero flr in UK while floor nos. begin from 1 in US.Is it true? And if so,what is the apparent origin of this difference?
Thanx in advance to those altruists who post in their replies.
Au revoir mon amis,
Quizzer.
It is true that the general practice in the States is to label the ground floor as “1st floor.” (Older department stores and hotels had a partial floor running around the two-story-high walls of the first floor lobby or sales area that was labelled the mezzanine and the “2d floor” was the (complete) floor above that.
It is true that in Europe, the general practice is to label the first floor above the ground floor as the “1st floor” (or “1st stage”).
I don’t recall whether the Brits follow the European or U.S. practice.
(I say “generally” because there have been a large number of buildings built in the U.S. in the last 30 years that do not follow a specific practice. Back in the days when all multi-story buildings were built facing city streets, it was easy to identify the main floor. With the construction of office centers, resorts, and other buildings as stand-alone entities, often built into the sides of natural or constructed hills, I have seen a number of cases in which there is a “principal” entrance facing the functional parking area and a separate “principal” entrance facing an elaborate driveway and I have noticed that such buildings often label their floors with attempts at “meaningful” names on the levels that provide special services, (registration desk, meeting rooms, ballrooms, dining rooms, pools, etc.), and begin the numbering system at some arbitrarily chosen floor.)
Additionally, many buildings, in the US have no 13th floor. That is that the floors go …11th, 12th, 14th, 15th… with the number 13 omitted.
Does the same hold true in other parts of the world?
As to the reasons behind the differences? Who knows?
My WAG (since I have never encountered a clear explanation that seemed verifiable) is that the European languages tend to use words for the floors above the ground level that are etymologically related to “shelf” or similar words, implying something built above an empty space. If my guess is correct, then the Brits simply adopted the European nomclature to avoid hassles with the relatively larger number of European visitors that they received when the words came into general use, while the more distant Yanks simply labelled everything “floors” without any European pressure to give a separate name to the ground floor.
There is a mildly amusing conversation on the subject from this Harvard blog. (The claimed Viennese practice seems odd, even to me and I never encountered the purported Belgian convention while I lived in Belgium for a year.)
European. I don’t know why either, but I doubt it’s because of influence from continental visitors.
I can’t recall being in a tall building in Britain that had 13 removed from the floor numbers, but the street where I grew up didn’t have a house number 13 on it, so I suppose it’s possible.
I lived in three different high-rise blocks in Britain and none of them had the 13th floor “removed”.
Yep, the “first floor” in the UK is the floor above the ground floor. So the top floor of a six-storey* building would be the fifth floor.
*another difference is that we spell it “storey” for a tall building, “story” for a tall tale…
"Additionally, many buildings, in the US have no 13th floor. That is that the floors go …11th, 12th, 14th, 15th… with the number 13 omitted.
Does the same hold true in other parts of the world?"
As far as unlucky numbers being omitted go, yes. In Japan many hotels do not have 4th or 9th floor labels, because those numbers can be read the same way as the characters for “death” and “suffering”. This numbering convention is most noticeable in hospitals where those numbers are absent from rooms, too.