Of course one can’t count on the top floor as being either the top floor or the top floor -1 – The US tends not to have a thirteenth floor as unlucky. The Japanes don’t have a fourth floor. (If I remember correctly the Japenese word for the number four is pretty close to the word for death)
Gary _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Glyn Garside Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 12:07 PM To: Jacob Schanker Cc: EMC-PSTC Subject: Re: N-way switches "Jacob Schanker" <[email protected]> wrote on 12/06/2005 14:03:30: > [...] Speaking of stairs, this reminds me of the disconnect between the US > and UK on the numbering of floors in a building, and the counting of > the "stories" in a building. As I recall, the US likes to use the > designation "Ground" for what the UKites would call the first floor. > It is equivalent to us in the US beginning the count at zero, which > should tickle an engineer's fancy. Staying steadfastly way off-topic, it's actually the other way around. As a British engineer located in USA, my observation is: USA: Ground floor = 1st floor UK: Ground floor = ground floor. (Doesn't need a number?!) If you put an extra storey on TOP of the ground floor, that's the first storey. In UK, the top floor of a building with N floors is the (n-1)th storey. But what about other countries? I think France numbers the same as UK? I guess the logic, if any, was there has to be at least one floor, and you don't need to assign numbers unless there is more than one. Mind you, we don't entirely follow this when counting wars, kings, queens, etc. (Queen Elizabeth had no number at the time. Elizabeth II does and it is NOT one. Except maybe in Canada?) Best regards, glyn TUV Rheinland of North America, Inc. Glyn R. Garside Functional Safety Program Manager 1945 Techny Rd, Unit 4 NORTHBROOK, IL 60062-5357, USA Tel (847)562-9888 ext 25 Fax (847)562-0688 <http://www.us.tuv.com/> http://www.us.tuv.com - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
