In the U.S., "ground floor" and "first floor" are interchangeable. Everywhere else, the first floor is one flight up.

Since North America was settled by Europeans, how did this custom get left behind? Did someone suddenly decree that henceforth the first floor is at ground level, and you'd better comply or else? Or what?

Oddly, this is one of those occasions where Americans - who normally get really excited when real English isn't consistent - get pretty inconsistent themselves.

Maybe this was the jetlag confusing me - but I swear that in of all places the Museum of New York, the floors were called what God intended floors to be called.

The nice old ladies from the Bronx just didn't know where things were.

An affectation you could understand in Las Vegas' Paris Hotel or some poncified uptown apartment block with a silly name like Batiment Rive Gauche. But in a people's museum?

Ground floor and first floor are not always interchangeable in the US, some public buildings (not just museums) have things listed as ground floors, and then a first floor. This isn't unusual for some institutions, or any building with different levels. My house, for example, is on a hill, so what is ground floor in the rear is different than the front door, which really is the first floor. If you have a basement, then that really is a floor there, even if it is at ground level (it isn't always). For example, I live in Wash DC and a lot of older rowhouse or townhouses have basements with windows (often where the servants or kitchen were) and the first floor is up some stairs from say, sidewalk level--those basements are a little below ground level and a little above. IN fact, for homes, the first floor often is not really at ground level, there often is a porch and the first floor is higher.

some hotels and hospitals and schools refer to a ground level, also.

I wouldn't call my first floor in my house ground level, because it isn't in the rear of the house, only in front.

The English word floor etymologically originates in the German word "Flur" which means meadow, field or simply a level surface. In English, the word floor is still used in this meaning, e.g. "forest floor" or "cave floor".

Thus, it would be logical to say "first floor" for the ground floor.

In French, you say "etage" or in German "Stockwerk". Both words mean a structure which had been erected to create a level above the ground floor. This is the reason why the premier etage or der erste Stock mean one level ABOVE the ground floor.

Hi Robe,

It's quite simple, really.

Back in the very old days when the colonies were still East of the Appalachians, most folks lived in dirt-floored cabins.

It might take years before they had cleared enough land to be able to have a food surplus.

It was then that they put wooden planks and sidewalks in the towns.

The also covered the old dirt floors.

Thus, their very first floor, which covered the old "ground floor", was still at street level.

It used to be called the "first real floor", but that has been shortened to "first floor".

The level of the old dirt floor is still known as the "ground floor", even if it is covered.

So, if you enter a building, and it has the first real floor covering up the dirt, you enter on the first floor, otherwise you enter on the ground floor (even if it does have tile or stone on it) and the first floor is above street level.

_

And I'd like to know why, in the British Colonies, vehicles traveled on the right side of the road...

BTW, who are the "septics"? Have I missed something?

Hi TH,

American = Yank = Septic Tank = Septic

Ira, nice story, but not very logical. Why didn't the same thing happen when people started putting in proper floors in their homes in the UK?

floors are not consistent in the uk. half the time the lift buttons in public places like shopping malls are labelled with letters that are meaningless to the normal guy off the street (e.g. LF, PU, GR, etc) of course with numbers on the floors themselves. the other half of the time the buttons don't match the directory hanging in the lift next to the buttons....quite often the buttons will reflect a strange system where the basement is 0 and the ground floor is 1. but british designers always design things for themselves and not for those meant to use their creations....part of our famous customer service culture and why we are so special. i'm not looking for consistency across the country...only within the same building!

A lot of older (50 years plus) public buildings in the US contain a level that we call the basement, even if it is accessible from street level (often with a very short flight of stairs down). So, in these buildings, the "first floor" is above the lowest occupied level (but that's not called ground level because it is usually partially below ground level). The first floor is usually the first level that is entirely above ground, whether that means its sitting at ground level or above a basement partly above ground.

Hi N,

>Ira, nice story, but not very logical. Why didn't the same thing happen when people started putting in proper floors in their homes in the UK? <

My story was perfectly logical.

The reason that the Limeys don't call the ground floor the first floor is because, way back when, the first real floors that they put in were atop of what were the rooves of their semi-cave hovels - little more than a pit covered with straw.

Thus, the first real floor was above ground level, and they still had the lower level with a dirt floor - the ground floor.

Ira:

There's no significant difference between the houses many of us are fortunate enough to live in here and those built at the same time in New York or Boston. I know you haven't kept many, but drawings of them look just like ours.

Now here's the funny thing. On both sides of the Atlantic, there were loads of houses with what in English we call first floors by the early 18th century. But the Oxford English dictionary seems to show no reference to the term "first floor" before 1840. And books before then never seem to number floors: they just talk about "upstairs" or "the rooms above"

Europeans didn't necessarily number them either: for much of the 19th century and earlier in Italy you just had the pianterreno, the piano signorile above it then the servants' quarters.

So here's my suggestion. We didn't - any of us - bother with floor numbers till busybody census officials started differentiating between which floor of a tenement the poor sods were crammed into.

At that point, officialdom - rather than the usual organic process of languages - decided on the right terminology. Britain and the countries it ran called the first floor one thing the US another. The bits of Europe near Britain copied the British: far flung places did something else.

Anyone got a better idea?

Ground floor vs 1st Floor - well that's another story

Ira : "American = Yank = Septic Tank = Septic"

LOL !!!

I also love the British forums where the name for Australians is "Crims".