Rather like the system of which side of the road one drives on, the floor numbering system almost, if not entirely, comes down to Britain (and its ex-colonies—maybe not all) versus [most of] the rest of the world. (I’m not going to wander into mezzanine and other half-floor naming territory, as it just gets too complicated.)
The British system is: Ground Floor, First Floor, Second Floor, and so on.
[Most of] The rest of the world is: First Floor, Second Floor, Third Floor, and so on.
You can see at a quick glance that there’s a discrepancy between the two systems, which will make a bit of a splat if you are a bungee jumper and failed to check out which system is in operation in which country…
Update 300112: Grazie, Valerio, for pointing out that the Italian system is the same as the British. I've made the relevant amendments now.
Update 300112: Grazie, Valerio, for pointing out that the Italian system is the same as the British. I've made the relevant amendments now.
This is interesting. I thought that First Floor, Second Floor, etc. was only American, and the rest of the world was Ground Floor, First Floor, etc. The latter is used in Italy for sure, where often the ground floor is also labelled 0, and the basement can be labelled -1. I used to joke that 0 and negative numbers are too fancy a concept for the practically minded average American.
ReplyDeleteI recently had the occasion to observe something that I found quite amusing. I was in Ottawa, Canada, a bilingual city at the border between English speaking Ontario and French speaking Quebec. One often sees awkward attempts to cater to both languages and cultures, for example, the French name for Rideau Street should be Rue Rideau, and so the street sign will say Rue Rideau Street, which I find a bit funny.
In the building where I was staying, the First floor button was missing. There was a button labelled G (for ground floor) and then one labelled 2, for the next floor up. I am convinced this is to avoid any confusion. For a French, First floor is the one upstairs, and for the American it's at ground level, so they just avoided the issue altogether and abolished the first floor...