Rare Usa-China w.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2026
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Whatever you call it, I don’t see why the ground level should be a separate concept from all the other levels, and ignored in the numbering system. The difference may be relevant for construction and engineering purposes, but for actually using a building, they’re the same idea.
:ok: Most monolingual shit I ever read. You didn't really understand what I wrote.
I don't see how it makes sense to name something that is a ceiling a "floor", but that's because thats not how its thought about in english
Get rid of the word ‘floor’ if you don’t like it. That’s not the issue. Call them levels if you want, some places do. Other languages have a distinct category for the ground level that separates it from the rest of the building and I’m saying I don’t think that’s necessary or very useful. If a different numbering system works better for another language than awkwardly going against the natural way of speaking, then fine, but it’s not a deficiency of english that we wouldn’t say “a one story building doesn’t have any levels”.
What initiated this discussion was someone saying no other system made sense, I explained why it does, the sense just isn't there in english.
This is the monolingual part lol. Language isn't constructed around productivity or specific usecases.
This reads like you're going
about me calling english silly.
A lot of the discussion in this thread should really be clarified whether it’s english specific, or trying to cover everyone.
I’m not trying to argue languages should be changed based on usefulness, but that english not having a ground level distinction is not a problem. The ‘floor’ double meaning is silly, but I was pushing back on it needing to have a word for elevated levels.
One system for the entire world wouldn’t work unless the way we talk about floor numbers were as decoupled from language as phone numbers, but as long as I can still mock the british I’m good.
If you want to mock someone for numbers, look into what the french are doing