Posaunus wrote: Thu Oct 09, 2025 11:44 am
Isn't it interesting that in many (most?) countries outside the United States, multi-story buildings have a "zero" level (ground floor); you have to climb up to the "first" floor. Counting from zero is alive and well!
I think that's more of a linguistic thing than a math thing. In English, you use the words "floor" and count the number of floors, as in literally the thing you walk on, and the ground level obviously has a floor, and therefore is counted as a number. In most other languages that's not the case, we give names to the levels first, not numbers, and the ground level is not called "floor 0“, but simply "ground level", and the floors above or below the ground level are called exactly that. For example, take a building that has 3 levels, one at ground level, one above and one below is often not numbered at all. In German it's not - 1, 0 and 1. Ground level is called
Erdgeschoss, that literally translates to "the earth level". The floor below is
Untergeschoss, "the level under". And the floor above is
Obergeschoss, the "overlevel". Or in French,
rez-de-chaussée, translates as "level with the street". The basement is
sous-sol, meaning "the underground" and the uper level is simply
l'étage, originally meaning "the dwelling", as people living in two-story buildings tended originally to live on the upper level, the lower being used for storage, or shops. We only number them when there are more than one. I.e. just as nobody would call the basement of a simple house the "first basement" (it's just "the basement"), we don't call the level above the ground level "first overlevel" either, it's just "the overlevel". If there are two or more , then yes, first overlevel, second overlevel, etc. It makes complete sense linguistically. More sense, I would dare say, than calling the middle floor of a 2-storied house with a basement (three floors in total) the "first floor" when there indeed is one below it. Bit weird to call the middle of three items "the first", no?
The one case where I find it does make total sense to number floors the American way, using numbers and starting from 1, is when buildings are built on uneven elevation and different floors are at ground level in different parts of the building. Then you often see 1 assigned to the very lowest floor. Ground level can be 3 or 5 or whatever, and it doesn't matter. That I like.
