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> as we do in all other aspects of life You mean like elevators? You may be surprised to learn that elevators in America are 1-indexed (ground floor == floor 1

by umvi 8y ago

> as we do in all other aspects of life You mean like elevators? You may be surprised to learn that elevators in America are 1-indexed (ground floor == floor 1), but in Europe they are 0-indexed (ground floor == floor 0).

coldtea 8y ago
As a European I'm not really surprised, but it's not exactly the same thing. It's not like the ground level is considered "the 0th floor" and thus we use 0-based indexing. In most European countries the ground floor is not considered the same thing as the others. As Wikipedia puts it: "In most of Europe, the "first floor" is the first level above ground level". We consider and count as floors the "layers" above the ground level. In french for example, the ground level is called "rez-de-chaussée" and the floors above it "XX étage". The ground level is not an "étage" (in American terms, the "ground level" is not considered a floor, and is not counted among the floors). For this reason, apart from elevator labels nobody calls the ground level "the 0th floor" when speaking/writing. And even in elevators, O is just used as a convenient way to convey the ground level (since the buttons don't fit much) -- and not everywhere. In many elevators it gets it own designation (e.g. G or GRD or some other national variety). It's "the ground level" (with different names per country) + "N floors". A multi-floor building with ground floor + 3 floors can even named "3rd-storey building" in some countries (and the ground level is just taken as granted) -- e.g. une maison à deux étages in the UK --> 3 story building in the US.
- oblio 8y ago
  Yup, for Europe I'd actually be curious which countries don't consider the first floor the one above the ground floor, since they're probably the minority.
- phkahler 8y ago
  >> A multi-floor building with ground floor + 3 floors can even named "3rd-storey building" in some countries I think you just refuted your own previous assertion that 1-indexing is universal in all other aspects of life.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Not sure what you mean. There are 3 floors (as europeans define a floor, ie. anything ABOVE what americans call ground floor) and are named floor 1, floor 2 and floor 3. So, no 0-based indexing here. We call the house a "3-storey house" not because we zero index, but because the cardinality of it's floors (as europeans define a floor) is 3. In "3-storey building" for Europeans, 3 is the "length", not the last index.
- threatofrain 8y ago
  Ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor still sounds very much like 0-based indexing. Is the objection just that people don't literally say the word "zero", but instead say ground?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    “Ground floor” is not the European name; the names are things like “Ground of the roadway” (literal word-by-word translation of the French name), “first floor”, “second floor”, etc. It's no more zero-based indexing than naming relations as “sibling”,“first cousin”,“second cousin” is, just because some hypothetical culture that also uses 1-based indexing but counts siblings as first cousins might rationalize our system as starting with “zeroth cousins” where they have “first cousins”.
    - mcabbott 8y ago
      There are also differences of building styles, maybe this is part of how we ended up with different terminology. The prototypical Parisian building has a paved driveway to the courtyard which is on the ground level. The prototypical New England house has a first floor which is a wooden thing with floorboards, 3 feet or so above ground.
    - threatofrain 8y ago
      If I heard that in other countries their use of 1st floor was 1 off from me, and they had a name for whatever was before 1, then what they have is like a zero, especially if some elevators use the literal 0 to mean the ground floor.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >and they had a name for whatever was before 1 What they have merely names what Americans name as zero. But it's not a stand-in for zero, for us, it's a different entity (a different thing). A floor (etage, piano, orofos, etc) is a "layer of building where people live above the ground level layer". So there's no zero-based indexing of floors, because the first item in the set of what are considered as floors is called "first" (e.g. primo in italian). So, the thing one must understand before they say "same difference", is the other cultural difference: that most European countries don't consider the ground level "floor" to be a floor/story. I.e, we don't consider the upper floors and the "ground floor" to be in the same set. Which is also why we don't count them when we say a "2 story house" (and we mean a house with 3 such layers, ground story + 2 stories). Is there a zero-based indexing of the whole "heterogenous" set of ground level + floors? Well, it's common to have the ground level designated with G or national specific names: BG, BV, E, IS, PB, PT, RC, S, P, PK, etc. It's just that in some elevators 0 is a substitute for this -- which is probably due to the few common brands and parts being international and nobody bothering to change them (e.g. Otis). That's more a red herring than how Europeans think about floors or index them.
goto11 8y ago
It is not 0-indexed, it is just that "floor" means something different than in American English. It means a level above the ground. So the first level above ground is the first floor. The German word Stockwerk is even clearer. It describes the wooden planks which separates two levels. So if you live on the first Stockwerk you live one level above ground.

by umvi 8y ago

coldtea 8y ago

As a European I'm not really surprised, but it's not exactly the same thing. It's not like the ground level is considered "the 0th floor" and thus we use 0-based indexing. In most European countries the ground floor is not considered the same thing as the others. As Wikipedia puts it: "In most of Europe, the "first floor" is the first level above ground level". We consider and count as floors the "layers" above the ground level. In french for example, the ground level is called "rez-de-chaussée" and the floors above it "XX étage". The ground level is not an "étage" (in American terms, the "ground level" is not considered a floor, and is not counted among the floors). For this reason, apart from elevator labels nobody calls the ground level "the 0th floor" when speaking/writing. And even in elevators, O is just used as a convenient way to convey the ground level (since the buttons don't fit much) -- and not everywhere. In many elevators it gets it own designation (e.g. G or GRD or some other national variety). It's "the ground level" (with different names per country) + "N floors". A multi-floor building with ground floor + 3 floors can even named "3rd-storey building" in some countries (and the ground level is just taken as granted) -- e.g. une maison à deux étages in the UK --> 3 story building in the US.

oblio 8y ago
Yup, for Europe I'd actually be curious which countries don't consider the first floor the one above the ground floor, since they're probably the minority.
phkahler 8y ago
>> A multi-floor building with ground floor + 3 floors can even named "3rd-storey building" in some countries I think you just refuted your own previous assertion that 1-indexing is universal in all other aspects of life.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Not sure what you mean. There are 3 floors (as europeans define a floor, ie. anything ABOVE what americans call ground floor) and are named floor 1, floor 2 and floor 3. So, no 0-based indexing here. We call the house a "3-storey house" not because we zero index, but because the cardinality of it's floors (as europeans define a floor) is 3. In "3-storey building" for Europeans, 3 is the "length", not the last index.
threatofrain 8y ago
Ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor still sounds very much like 0-based indexing. Is the objection just that people don't literally say the word "zero", but instead say ground?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  “Ground floor” is not the European name; the names are things like “Ground of the roadway” (literal word-by-word translation of the French name), “first floor”, “second floor”, etc. It's no more zero-based indexing than naming relations as “sibling”,“first cousin”,“second cousin” is, just because some hypothetical culture that also uses 1-based indexing but counts siblings as first cousins might rationalize our system as starting with “zeroth cousins” where they have “first cousins”.
  - mcabbott 8y ago
    There are also differences of building styles, maybe this is part of how we ended up with different terminology. The prototypical Parisian building has a paved driveway to the courtyard which is on the ground level. The prototypical New England house has a first floor which is a wooden thing with floorboards, 3 feet or so above ground.
  - threatofrain 8y ago
    If I heard that in other countries their use of 1st floor was 1 off from me, and they had a name for whatever was before 1, then what they have is like a zero, especially if some elevators use the literal 0 to mean the ground floor.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >and they had a name for whatever was before 1 What they have merely names what Americans name as zero. But it's not a stand-in for zero, for us, it's a different entity (a different thing). A floor (etage, piano, orofos, etc) is a "layer of building where people live above the ground level layer". So there's no zero-based indexing of floors, because the first item in the set of what are considered as floors is called "first" (e.g. primo in italian). So, the thing one must understand before they say "same difference", is the other cultural difference: that most European countries don't consider the ground level "floor" to be a floor/story. I.e, we don't consider the upper floors and the "ground floor" to be in the same set. Which is also why we don't count them when we say a "2 story house" (and we mean a house with 3 such layers, ground story + 2 stories). Is there a zero-based indexing of the whole "heterogenous" set of ground level + floors? Well, it's common to have the ground level designated with G or national specific names: BG, BV, E, IS, PB, PT, RC, S, P, PK, etc. It's just that in some elevators 0 is a substitute for this -- which is probably due to the few common brands and parts being international and nobody bothering to change them (e.g. Otis). That's more a red herring than how Europeans think about floors or index them.

goto11 8y ago

It is not 0-indexed, it is just that "floor" means something different than in American English. It means a level above the ground. So the first level above ground is the first floor. The German word Stockwerk is even clearer. It describes the wooden planks which separates two levels. So if you live on the first Stockwerk you live one level above ground.