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Ask for help > floor/storey/
floor/storey/
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nemomen
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floor/storey/
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Hi guys! I need to know if I can say a two-floor house or just a two-storey house. Is the first term correct or not?Please help:) Thank you!!! |
21 Nov 2015
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cunliffe
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Hi there, it �s two storeys. You don �t hear it often, as most houses are two storey houses. I have got a three-storey house. I bought a house with three floors so I could get some peace from my mother and my sons. Since then, my mother has died and my sons have left home. 
Edit: this is in British English.
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21 Nov 2015
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nemomen
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Thank you!!! Sorry to hear that:( |
21 Nov 2015
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almaz
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Hi, nemomen. Around where I live in Glasgow, most of the buildings are four-storey tenements � exactly like the one in the picture below. I used to live on the top, or third floor of one of these (in British English, we start from the �ground� floor, then the first...etc). Alex
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21 Nov 2015
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Tapioca
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As cunliffe said, the most common term used in Standard English is "two-storey" house. But if you need to know whether "two-floor house" is � correct � in terms of its grammar or vocabulary, then I would say that it is correct, but rarely used. This Google Ngram illustrates the usage of the two terms. If one of your students used that term, then you �d need to explain that while it is not actually wrong and most people would understand it, it would be more useful to learn the more widely-used phrase "two-storey house". It is confusing, because if you asked a question about a house, I think a native speaker would be more likely to ask "How many floors does your house have?" than "How many storeys does your house have?" It could be that when we use �storey � we are thinking of the construction of a building and how many �volumes � it contains, which is a little technical, whereas �floor � seems to be a word we use in a more specific sense to talk about a habitable or usable area within a building. That �s why Alex talked about which floor he lived on, but talked about the tenement building as having four storeys. Interesting question! :-) Tap |
21 Nov 2015
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MoodyMoody
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I �m chiming in with the American perspective. We use both two-floor and two-story (no e) house almost interchangeably. I think we favor floor a bit because when we go on elevators (lifts to the Brits, I believe?), we almost always talk about the floors, not stories. |
21 Nov 2015
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Tapioca
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I didn�t know that the US spelling of �storey� was different. That�s interesting.
Apologies for going a bit off-topic Nemomen, but I wonder if, when they say: �There are eight million stories in the naked city� at the end of the 1948 movie �The Naked City� (set in New York), there might be a bit of word play there, do you think? Skyscrapers are a strong visual and metaphorical element in the film.
Clip for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zI7weKj9oU I�m going to ask some friends in the States about the two-floor vs. two-story house now. :-) Tap
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21 Nov 2015
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yanogator
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I �m more likely to say that I live in a two-story house, or that my house has two floors. Bruce |
21 Nov 2015
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Tapioca
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Thanks Bruce, that makes it 50/50 so far on your side of the water. Any other Americans want to enter the fray so we can get a consensus? :-) |
21 Nov 2015
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MoodyMoody
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Even American English is not monolithic. I believe Bruce is from California (correct me if I �m wrong), and I �m from North Carolina. It �s quite possible that there is a difference of dialect between us. Since there �s no defined American equivalent to RP, usage varies from region to region, |
21 Nov 2015
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Tapioca
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I wanted to ask exactly that, but didn �t like to pry :-)) Thank you! We need a New Yorker now and maybe someone from the mid-West? |
21 Nov 2015
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