American counting - is it different?

[danny la rouge]

i don't suppose they do. but their travel to work arrangements are of no interest.

Saturdays work from home.

 

[two sheds]

For consistency it'd be 7, if you think thumbs aren't fingers, because you start counting things with zero.

Well exactly - ground floor is the zeroeth thumby floor so you start counting at finger 1.

 

[weltweit]

How many is a billion? - Oxford Dictionaries

eta: see that Yossarian got there before me

The only logical way is:

1 one
10 ten
100 one hundred
1,000 one thousand
10,000 ten thousand
100,000 hundred thousand
1,000,000 million
10,000,000 ten million
100,000,000 hundred million
1,000,000,000 billion
10,000,000,000 ten billion
100,000,000,000 hundred billion
1,000,000,000,000 thousand billion or trillion?

 

[danny la rouge]

Well exactly - ground floor is the zeroeth thumby floor so you start counting at finger 1.

Ah, so you propose that just as thumbs aren't fingers, so the ground floor isn't a storey?

 

[Spymaster]

Their counting of the floors of buildings is wrong.

First floor is second floor or second floor is first floor or something.

No. They don't have "ground floors". So what we call the ground floor they call the first floor. Our first floor is their second, etc ...

- their system is a little bit more sensible.

No. It's silly. Ground floors, being on the ground, should be called ground floors, not first floors, which aren't.

 

[DaveCinzano]

The only logical way is:

1 one
10 ten
100 one hundred
1,000 one thousand
10,000 ten thousand
100,000 hundred thousand
1,000,000 million
10,000,000 ten million
100,000,000 hundred million
1,000,000,000 milliard
10,000,000,000 ten milliard
100,000,000,000 hundred milliard
1,000,000,000,000 billion

CFY

 

[danny la rouge]

No. They don't have "ground floors". So what we call the ground floor they call the first floor. Our first floor is their second, etc ...



No. It's silly. Ground floors, being on the ground, should be called ground floors, not first floors, which aren't.

I thought I had it a minute ago. I thought all floors weren't storeys. But now you're saying all floors aren't floors!

Tell me again why, on counting floors, the floor that comes first isn't the first floor?

 

[peterkro]

"back in the eighteen hundreds" that would be "the nineteenth century" to the rest of us.
"it's coming up to the top of the hour" WTF.

 

[alsoknownas]

The only logical way is:

1 one
10 ten
100 one hundred
1,000 one thousand
10,000 ten thousand
100,000 hundred thousand
1,000,000 million
10,000,000 ten million
100,000,000 hundred million
1,000,000,000 billion
10,000,000,000 ten billion
100,000,000,000 hundred billion
1,000,000,000,000 thousand billion or trillion?

To be honest US English is often a bit more logical that British English (except for abbreviated dates, where they get it completely wrong of course). But I (sometimes) like the quirks of English anyway, and wouldn't want it to get too mechanically logical.

 

[Celyn]

Yan, tyan, tethera. methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, othera, dothera, deek, yandeek, tyandeek, tetheradeek, metheradeek, bumfit, yanabumfit, tyanabumfit, tetherabumfit, metherabumfit, jiggit.

 

[two sheds]

I thought I had it a minute ago. I thought all floors weren't storeys. But now you're saying all floors aren't floors!

Tell me again why, on counting floors, the floor that comes first isn't the first floor?

You look upwards when going upstairs it's the first floor that you see.

 

[alsoknownas]

No. It's silly. Ground floors, being on the ground, should be called ground floors, not first floors, which aren't.

Actually they are - they're the first floor that you encounter when you enter a building, so from that point of view their system makes total sense.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yan, tyan, tethera. methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, othera, dothera, deek, yandeek, tyandeek, tetheradeek, metheradeek, bumfit, yanabumfit, tyanabumfit, tetherabumfit, metherabumfit, jiggit.

all things you've been called this morning?

 

[alsoknownas]

Yan, tyan, tethera. methera, pimp...

Is this another one of Snoop Dogg's shizzle languages?

 

[danny la rouge]

"back in the eighteen hundreds"

That one annoys me. "Eighteen hundreds" means specifically the first decade of the 19th Century. Not "up to and including the end of the century".

Though don't get me started on that again. Because obviously the end of the 19th Century was 1900, and the 20th Century started with 1901: there was/is no 0 AD (or 0 CE). And a century needs 100 years. (Though apparently the 20th Century only had 99. But if that's agreed - that it was a leap century sort of thing - I suppose I have to live with that.)

 

[danny la rouge]

You look upwards when going upstairs it's the first floor that you see.

When I look upwards to see the first floor what floor am I standing on?

 

[two sheds]

ground floor

 

[bluescreen]

In an American elevator in a building where there are basement floors, do they have a floor zero or does it go straight from -1 to 1?

 

[Pickman's model]

In an American elevator in a building where there are basement floors, do they have a floor zero or does it go straight from -1 to 1?

yes

 

[danny la rouge]

ground floor

So a floor. The first one in a building. The first to be built. The first you'd encounter on entering it.

 

[two sheds]

In an American elevator in a building where there are basement floors, do they have a floor zero or does it go straight from -1 to 1?

good point

 

[danny la rouge]

In an American elevator in a building where there are basement floors, do they have a floor zero or does it go straight from -1 to 1?

Mind. Blown. They haven't discovered zero, but they've got negative integers!

 

[DaveCinzano]

When I look upwards to see the first floor what floor am I standing on?

A Catholic bear noisily taking a dump as trees fall about around him in the woods?

 

[Spymaster]

Tell me again why, on counting floors, the floor that comes first isn't the first floor?

Because it's on the ground.

Floors, should correctly be counted thus: First above ground, second above ground, third above ground ...

If you were building a multiple floored edifice; after you had constructed the first above ground layer, you would sit back with your co-constructors, mop your brow, crack open a beer, and say "phew, nice works chaps, that's the first one done". You wouldn't say "that's the second floor done" because it would make you a liar.

 

[Pickman's model]

In an American elevator in a building where there are basement floors, do they have a floor zero or does it go straight from -1 to 1?

 

[Pickman's model]

Because it's on the ground.

Floors, should correctly be counted thus: First above ground, second above ground, third above ground ...

If you were building a multiple floored edifice; after you had constructed the first above ground layer, you would sit back with your co-constructors, mop your brow, crack open a beer and say "phew, nice works chaps, that's the first one done". You wouldn't say "that's the second floor done" because it would make you a liar.

well done pa

 

[danny la rouge]

Because it's on the ground.

Floors, should correctly be counted thus: First above ground, second above ground, third above ground ...

What if street level is the third floor, like a building I often use?

 

[two sheds]

A Catholic bear noisily taking a dump as trees fall about around him in the woods?

turtles all the way down

 

[danny la rouge]

Don't you have any *funny* ones?

 

[peterkro]

According to Otis (lift makers) 85% of US buildings (over that height) don't have thirteenth floors and mainly go 12th/14th.Most airlines have a thirteenth row of seats though some don't.