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Red has first floor = ground floor. Blue has first floor above ground floor.
But how are floors counted in Antarctica?
They are on stilts - you can walk underneath the first floor!
The US base calls them first level and second level. The British base calls them operational level and upper level.
So the ground is ground floor? Clever.
I think it depends on the convention used in each country, so there isn't one global correct answer.
In Britain the convention is Ground, 1st Floor, 2nd Floor.
TIL. Living in the states I thought the answer is obviously that the ground floor and first floor are synonymous.
Agreed. For the other side of the Atlantic, it is ground or 1st floor, 2nd floor.
Makes sense, I'm in Quebec and that's what feels right to me but I didn't realize it was different elsewhere, it explains my confusion in Internet conversations
I agree with the UK one as in Spain we do pretty much the same.
0 index versus 1 index, the classic counting collections conundrum.
My North American mind cannot comprehend the UK version.
"First" floor implies it is the first one. Why does the ground floor get special treatment?
And the fourth floor, it's the fourth one because there are four of them.
Other countries treat the question more as "how many floors from the ground are you?" than what you're used to. After all, what floor is 0?
My inner computer scientist likes this framing, and understands its logic. My inner, and much less influential human being, hates it a lot AF.
Even in the CS world, ordinal phrases are still 1-indexed (e.g. the first element of an array vs element 0).
It's actually pretty common to say 0th index, but it depends a lot on context.
Sure, but that only applies when referring to indices or to the zeroth element specifically.
The one where it says 0 on the elevator?
But in the US way, you're only one floor from the ground on the first floor. 0 isn't a floor, it's literally the ground we put the first floor on.
To reach the 2nd floor you need to go up 2 floors
To reach the 1st floor you need to go up 1 floor
If you go up 0 floors, you're on floor 0 - aka the ground floor.
The ground floor is still a floor of the building, and it's the first one you encounter. To me they are interchangeable.
Alright, fair point. Clearly there are merits to both systems (see other answers). If there's a floor -1 and a floor 1 I'd expect there to be a floor 0 between them, and I don't think anyone would propose that floor 0 would have you climb down from street level to reach. That's why it makes sense to have ground floor at 0 to me.
It also might help to call them floor 1, floor 2 etc. instead of first floor, second floor, etc.. It's kind of like how the 20th century is the one going 19xx. So the 20th floor being floor 19 isn't too farfetched.
What do you mean I'm overthinking this?!
In an elevator, or I guess a lift, what do the buttons that select floors represent the ground floor with? A 'G'? A "0"?
Both appear and are considered interchangeable
Arrays are indexed from zero - the UK has the only correct naming approach.
So youre telling me you have 3 cookies in front of you, you'd call them the zeroth, first and second cookies?
Someone asks what cookie youre on and you say second having already eaten 2.5?
I am aghast that you assume I use floats anywhere in my code. The cookie has an eaten flag and in one tick it goes from false to true. If you want partial cookie eating tracking we can plan a future update.
Iirc it used to be that the ground floor was semi-basement, with windows at the ground level hence the name.
In my head for them ground level is just dirt and doesn't have a proper floor.
Well in my native language the word for ground floor would translate to something like "next to ground" and above that would be first floor which would be "above ceiling" in direct translation
It would be more complex if the US didn’t believe in 13th floor story and UK did. Even though both would have 14th floor on the same level from the ground, there is a lot that would be missed if you only elevated straight from the parking basement to your 14th floor.
It depends on where you are.
Second floor.
(Yeah, sorry, I could not resist)
Take your up vote and get out
When using the English word 'floor' counting ground floor as 'first floor' makes sense – ground level still has a floor and it is the first one, but it is still counted differently in different English-speaking countries. Other languages (at least Polish) have separate word for 'non-ground level of the building' so those are counted.
In Polish we have the word 'parter' for the ground floor (lowest non-basement level of the building) and 'piętro' for any level above it. So it is: ('piwnica' (basement), ) 'parter', '1 piętro', '2 piętro'… This makes complete sense… but I still remember it being confusing when I was a kid. A 'floor' (the bottom of a room) is 'podłoga'.
So, answering the question: there are three 'podłogas' under the second 'piętro' here.
In addition to that, in Czech we sometimes just call what would be the first floor above ground level "mezanin" and shift everything up by one more level, though it's becoming rare. In the house where I live they got rid of this last time they replaced the elevator. I've been joking that they forced me to move up from 2nd to 3rd floor with it.
This might be a misconception but I think like it might depend on how the people think about the concept on a regional basis.
If it's 'floor', the ground floor is the first floor. The one above ground floor is second floor.
If it's 'etage', the ground floor is below the first floor. I know 'étage' is the french equivalent for 'floor' but 'etager' is 'to layer (something on top of something else)'. So you have a building with the basic ground floor, and you 'étage' other floors on top.
Yeah there's no confusion in French because "étage" literally means "floor above ground", so calling the ground floor an "étage" makes no sense. It's called "rez-de-chaussée" ("at street level") or RDC for short. Same as "sous-sol" ("under-ground").
| French | UK English | US English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nème étage | Nth floor | N+1th floor | |
| ... | ... | ... | |
| 3e étage | 3rd floor | 4th floor | |
| 2e étage | 2nd floor | 3rd floor | |
| 1er étage | 1st floor | 2nd floor | |
| RDC | Ground floor | 1st floor | --- Street level |
| | 1er sous-sol | -1 floor | -1 floor | | | 2e sous-sol | -2 floor | -2 floor | | | ... | ... | ... | | Nème sous-sol | -N floor | -N floor | |
All I learned from this thread is that the word "floor" looks wrong to me now, on so many levels.
Yes, but we are asking how many levels.
Level 3, Metaphysical, Eye level
Look at the buttons in the elevator. ;)
Typically:
1, 2, 3, 4 or
G, 2, 3, 4 or
L, 2, 3, 4
Where "L" = "Lobby".
As others have said, in many countries it'd be:
0, 1, 2, 3 or
G, 1, 2, 3 or
L, 1, 2, 3
Edit: also, bold of you to assume there's an elevator!
But if there's a star it usually means ground/Street level and not the top floor.
What century is it if the year is 500? First century. What about if the year is -500 (500 BCE)? It's the first century BCE. You have now arrived at US numbering of "floors". Now which century is zeroth? It doesn't make sense to ask, just like having a floor numbered "zero". This might be why the ground floor is not special to us.
Are we on the number line, or counting the spaces, or counting additional layers? It's an arbitrary question or distinction, but it seems like it should be labeled somewhere in the elevator!