@Idrake @stueytheround it would be interesting to know the history of that choice. it seems so "obvious" to use the NA way to us, and to immigrants too i see. so, i know you Brits love to be eccentric 🥰🥰🥰, but nonetheless that can't be the only reason 😉
@stueytheround yes, that's reasonable. how did the old manor houses label their upper floors? people tended to follow the usage of their "betters" in those days. and they did have tenements in London, no?
@holon42 Quite possible. Tenaments and poorhouses were very much a thing, of course.
In the big houses, the 'help' used to live at the very top of the building and work at the very bottom. Out of sight, out of mind, unless absolutely necessary. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the terminology is a hangover from those days.
@stueytheround well, thanks, that's a good hypothesis, then. interesting, these cultural choices.
@holon42 @stueytheround except when it comes to measuring. Then we are the eccentric ones. We be like "Pft! Metric! Take your milimeters and liters and grams and fuck off!"
@Idrake yes, another cultural choice, very American reasons too🤧
@holon42 I think we did it to fuck with the Russian.. I can picture Ivan trying to take apart a crashed U2 being all "Balls! How many milimeters is in 7/16ths Sergei?"
"There is no math invented that can solve that!"
@holon42 "Fuckit! Pass me that crescent wrench!"
@Idrake perhaps, that's certainly plausible.
@stueytheround @Idrake @holon42
Not always... 🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾🤦🏻🤦🏾♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦♀️
https://www.simscale.com/blog/nasa-mars-climate-orbiter-metric/
@InvaderGzim
Oh yes. I'd read about that! 🤣
@Idrake @holon42
@holon42
It might go as far back as the days when you only had houses, rather than apartments.
So deliveries were either all to the front door on the ground floor or the basement/cellar (coal, firewood and the like) where a house had one. So as houses began being converted to apartments, the terms just stuck? Maybe.
@Idrake