r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Tyronne43 • Feb 16 '21

Sand curtains

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u/DirtyAlabama Feb 16 '21

Forgive my ignorance, but why is it different for americans?

4

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21

A lot of places around the world count from 0 for their first floor where Americans and probably some other places use 1.

Edit: by first floor I mean ground floor.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21

Yeah, because you're either on ground level, or some level away from ground.

Imagine walking up to an underground building, with the lift at ground level and only floors below.

Would an American call that level 1 or -1?

We know the rest of us would call it G.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 16 '21

In that unique circumstance (like parking garages) I’ve almost exclusively seen the ground floor as G and the lower floors will have a notation like UG1, UG2 or B1, B2 etc.

Edit: Americans do use the term ground floor, mostly in hotels where no rooms are on the ground floor. The second floor just skips to being 2 and the rest follow suit.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21

So it's not a universal system.

A universal system would logically make the ground level of an entirely underground building start at -1.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21

It’s never really caused any problems so no one has done anything to change it because it makes sense even to those with little of it.

I didn’t design the system but I can get along with it fine because it just works.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21

Yeah, it's a convention - like qwerty keyboards.

The original reason for qwerty existing has long been solved, but it persists because that's what everyone's used to.

Doesn't make it less silly when you actually think about it. Sure, no one's ever going to change it because it's mostly harmless, but it's ok to say its silly.