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[-] Bougie_Birdie 98 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I learned this when I was a wee lad: I was playing Runescape and trying to solve a quest I was stuck on with a walkthrough. The guide said that the macguffin was on the first floor of some building, and I must have spent hours looking on the ground floor with no luck.

I finally asked my big brother for help and he said, "Have you tried looking upstairs?" And there it was, blew my mind.

[-] britishblaze@lemmy.world 33 points 2 months ago

This is why the wiki now has a converter for British to American floorings

[-] SaintWacko@slrpnk.net 15 points 2 months ago

Dude, I had the same problem, but with a clue scroll! I cannot tell you how long I spent searching the bottom floor of buildings around the Ardougne square...

[-] TehBamski@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

#Computergamestaughtmesomething

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[-] Professorozone@lemmy.world 82 points 2 months ago

I'm American and I often think we do things wrong...

but not this. First floor on the SECOND floor. It's just wrong.

[-] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 2 months ago

You are completely wrong.

Imagine assigning to each floor a whole number.

Every time you go down a floor, the number should be decremented by 1, every time you go up a floor the number should be incremented by 1.

In order to get symmetry, floor 0 should be the ground floor - not floor 1. What maniac would assign floor 0 to the first basement floor?

[-] olicvb@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 months ago

They don't though, they start with B1, B2, B3...

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[-] norimee@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago
[-] Numuruzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 months ago

Right, the first floor after you ascend from the... Initial floor, which is on the ground, QED.

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[-] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago

We think of it as the first floor that is above the level of the ground - the planet supplies ground level, we just count every level we put above it.

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[-] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 11 points 2 months ago

This makes as much sense as those people that defend Fahrenheit by saying "30 degrees can't be warm, its cold!" - your own reference is to what you're used to calling it.

[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 14 points 2 months ago

Celsius is no more scientific than Fahrenheit, as it's also based on water at sea level, not some universal measurement.

So it's no more valid than F.

Kelvin is based on absolute zero, at least.

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[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 79 points 2 months ago

In the US we use either 1st floor and Ground floor to refer to the same floor. The second and higher floors are consistently named though, except for those buildings that skip the 13th floor.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 34 points 2 months ago

except for those buildings that skip the 13th floor.

When I was in Malaysia, buildings marked floors in British English and skipped any number ending in four (bad luck for Chinese). #MildlyInfuriating

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[-] perviouslyiner@lemmy.world 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Distribution of the two (pink is mixed) from Wikipedia:

distribution of the two

[-] booly@sh.itjust.works 16 points 2 months ago

What's crazy is that it's not consistent by language. Obviously we have British/Aussie/Kiwi vs US/Canadian English, but the Spanish speaking world is also fractured.

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[-] Signtist@lemm.ee 35 points 2 months ago

Never understood how ground floor and first floor aren't always synonymous. If the ground floor is a floor, then how could it not be the first of the floors?

[-] TehBamski@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

They might think of it as zero floor as if you were dealing with the decimal system. You even start your number count with a zero in computer science.

[-] norimee@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

European elevators often have the ground floor as 0.

I think it's because we are counting the upstairs. In german the word is "Stock" like you stack something onto the base building.

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[-] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In German we call the floors "Geschoss" we have "Erdgeschoss" (earth-floor) and then "Obergeschoss" (above-floor) "Untergeschoss" (under-floor). So you have the ground floor called EG, above it is 1.OG then 2.OG, etc. From the EG downwards there is the 1.UG and further down the 2.UG, etc.

With this terminology there can't be any confusion, because there needs to be a reference floor from which to count up and down. Lucky us.

[-] accideath@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Sometimes (not sure how regional it is, but at least where I live, it’s predominant), „Stock“ is also used for upper floors, so you have „Erdgeschoss“ and then „1. Stock“, „2. Stock“, etc.

You wouldn’t use this in official descriptions but in conversation this is wayyy more common.

Oh, and if you live directly under the roof, you can also refer to that as „Dachgeschoss“ ("roof floor"), especially if you, like me, lost count on which floor number you actually live.

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[-] blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io 22 points 2 months ago

Not exclusive to UK or US; here in Brazil me and my wife are from neighboring states and have this same difference in floor naming.

[-] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

Me: What is this we're standing on?

Patrick: The floor.

Me: And if I go up the stairs, what will I be standing on?

Patrick: The floor.

Me: So there is a floor above this one?

Patrick: Yes.

Me: And in order, that floor upstairs would come after this one?

Patrick: Yes.

Me: So, that would make it the second floor I've touched after coming inside?

Patrick: Yes.

Me: So which floor are we on now?

Patrick: Ground floor.

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[-] justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 months ago

More or less everybody except US and Russia has zero floor, counting in big office buildings is fun: 3,2,1,-1,-2, I know... The concept of a number zero is not that old (couple hundred years, don't remember the details), but should be enough to update your language :-*

[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 23 points 2 months ago

0 is a couple of centuries old?!?!!!!?

You may want to check that one out, you may be missing a zero somewhere there...

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[-] Soggy@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

We usually do B1, B2 etc. for "basement levels" rather than negative numbers. But if there's just one then it's usually "basement" with no number.

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[-] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

I would be okay with this if Britain started with the zeroth floor.

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[-] Broken@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 months ago

Hot tip in the US. In an elevator the floor with the star is the ground floor, regardless of what number is present. This helps clarify any confusion between systems and also is clear for locations that have floors below the ground floor (I've most commonly seen this with parking structures)

[-] dafo@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

In Sweden, maybe the rest of the EU, the entrance floor (entrevåning) has a green ring around it.

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[-] lustyargonian@lemm.ee 19 points 2 months ago

British use 0 indexing? Never thought about it like that huh

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[-] emerald 19 points 2 months ago

I didn't know they used 0-indexed buildings in ingerland

[-] repungnant_canary@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

Most of Europe does

[-] Daerun@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

Wait for the old spanish way of doing it. It was abandoned some 40-50 years ago and now we use the same as the british system, but the traditional way of doing it was (bottom to top on this same image): -Bajos -Entresuelo -Principal -First

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

As someone who does a bit of programming, I think a 256 story tall building should have floors 0-255. But as an American there should be 257 total floors so we can skip floor 13 because it's bad luck.

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[-] RandomStickman@fedia.io 17 points 2 months ago

The older buildings in Hong Kong often need to clarify this to avoid mix ups. Back in the day it's not uncommon to see signs advertising a business on the 3rd floor of a building, for example, to have 3 樓 2字 (3rd floor, number 2) to tell people they're on the 3rd floor but you need the press the 2 button in the lift. Also some (most? all?) skip the 4th floor for bad luck.

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[-] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago

I feel like the British way should always be phrased like "first floor up" or "third floor up" because then you count starting at zero. American way should be phrased as "the first floor" or "the fourth floor."

[-] menemen@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago
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[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 12 points 2 months ago

It gets worse after the 12th floor where American buildings skip the 13th floor because it’s bad luck.

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[-] esc27@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

I've worked in two U.S. buildings with Both ground and first floors. The buildings were built into a hill so street level entered the first floor, but parking entered the ground floor. Very easy to get confused until you figure it out.

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[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 months ago

I did a quick search, it seems it's similar to imperial and metric in that it's only the US doing 1st floor as ground floor. It's for various reasons, but in most European languages the word used for the numbered "floors" either means "horizontal division between floors" or the first "construction over the previous floor", so it makes sense that the first is the first above the ground.

It's like the basement, the ground floor is special.

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[-] Moah 11 points 2 months ago

Wait until you reach the 13th floor

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[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

Don't forget the mezzanine. Super bon bon!

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[-] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago

Zero-indexed versus one-indexed. You all know which is the right one

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[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago
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[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago
[-] vatlark@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

I like ground being 0. That way you have a continuous number line from basement to the top:

-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5

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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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