Floor ? Ground?

[fred]

What is this new affliction people suffer from when they call the ground the floor Oxford languages: Floor the lower surface of a room, on which one may walk. "a wooden floor"

[Andy Burns]

to me "the ground" is outdoors but "a floor" is indoors

[Andrew]

Germans are always amused that we travel ON the train and not IN it.

[Colin Bignell]

What about the ground floor? ;-)

[Bob Eager]

What if it's a solid floor?

[charles]

I travel BY train

[Rod Speed]

fred [e-mail] wrote

It's not new, it has always been very common in the UK.

[Tim+]

Surely everyone calls it the solum?

Tim

[Custos Custodum]

I tend to agree, though I would make an exception for "the sea floor" and possibly others that I can't think of at the moment. I blame "Eastenders". Another one that makes me cringe is the use of "optics" as a synonym for "appearance" or "visually presented data". Thankfully confined to journalese for the moment. And don't get me started on "enormity".

[Custos Custodum]

How much time did you spend travelling the length and breadth of the UK to let you arrive at that conclusion?

It may have been used in some dialects. My ears tell me it certainly wasn't as widespread as it appears to be now.

[Colin Bignell]

I would say sea bed, although ocean floor.

[williamwright]

As in "Steigen Sie in den Viehwaggon, Sie jüdischer Abschaum."

Bill

[PeterC]

My African girlfriend's mother lived in a hut that had a (dried!) mud floor, so it was floor and ground floor in one. It was referred to as a floor.

[Bob Eager]

Our living room has a solid floor on one side, and a suspended wooden floor on the other.

"Move that chair from the floor to the ground"!

[Custos Custodum]

So would I, if I took the time to think about it. :-)

[Clive Arthur]

Clearly, if the /first/ floor is upstairs, there can't be one downstairs.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes there can. We invented the zero some time ago. The ground floor is ground zero.

[SteveW]

Don't go into the building that I work in! The ground slopes, so at the back left of the building the entrance is on floor 2; at the front middle (the main entrance), it is also on floor 2; at back right, it is on floor 1; while at the side right, two entrances actually start out from the "ground floor" and the ground level is somewhere between ground floor and floor 1! Then there is a basement at that end.

Added to the fun, the building is W shaped from overhead, with the top floor being the 4th at one end and the there being an extra, 5th floor, at the other, plus a link corridor across the three tips of the top of the W, but only on floors 2 and 3, and it being necessary to go up from floor 2 to 3, along and down again to get from one part of floor 2 to another (unless you work for another organisation).

Then the centre three tips of the W are actually crosses, with stubs for extra offices, so you have to turn 90° to carry on along the building.

Oh and some of the staircases (but not all), which are wrapped around the lift shafts, go below the lowest floor in that area to fire exits - which exit to within the confines of the courtyard area within the W and have to have a extra escape tunnel to get out from there, under the link corridor.

It's no wonder that many people wander round lost and asking directions!

[S Viemeister]

Edinburgh Central Library is a bit like that.

[charles]

It's not just the library. I suspect the Playhouse is theonly theatre where you go downstairs from the box office (at street level) to get to the upper circle.