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BrE or AmE in your country??
damian, I understand all that, but on an intuitive level it doesn't make much sense to me, although HongKong did a respectable job of explaining it.
I have to do mental gymnastics to convert, in the same way I have to convert dollars to pounds, or pounds to kilograms...
***Damian, I understand all that, but on an intuitive level it doesn't make much sense to me, although HongKonger did a respectable job of explaining it***
Well, Jasper - Hongkonger is from my own home city of Edinburgh which explains his great verbal dexterity in performing respectable jobs by way of explanation! I strongly suspect that he's not a native of Auld Reekie though.....I can't quite fathom out why! ;-) To me the floor numbering system here makes a lot of sense......you usually enter a building at ground level here in GB - even if you have to skip up a few steps to get in through the front door......it's still the Ground Floor.....Ground Zero you might say if you'll excuse me using this rather sensitive term here bearing in mind its tragic connotations. The rest is just as I said previously - from Basement level below ground to the luxurious Penthouse Suites on the Top Floor complete with restaurant and bars with their fantastic panoramic views over London - as in The Gherkin which I can clearly see from where I am at this very moment towering above the City of London - that's the actual City itself and not London as a whole...there's a world of difference there! Now I'm heading home after a frantic day....hopefully the worst of the crush on the tube will be over by now. I wonder whereabouts in Edinburgh our friend Hongkonger is hanging out? I'm going home for the long weekend of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend which will be great......I'm missing my native local accent more than I care to admit really although I do have a fellow Scot as a colleague (sort of) even if he does come from Paisley.....;-)
<<I have to do mental gymnastics to convert, in the same way I have to convert dollars to pounds, or pounds to kilograms... >>
Haha, that's the spirit!! You're coming along, Jasper. I've lived on both sides of the Atlantic (and the Pacific), and I can't be bothered to do conversions anymore. I can't tell you how many pounds are in a kilogram off the top of my head, but I know what it feels like to carry 20 pounds or 20 kg on my back. I also know that my comfort zone is somewhere between 45 degrees F and 20 degrees C... which fits quite nicely with the weather here in Edinburgh. <<I strongly suspect that he's not a native of Auld Reekie though.....I can't quite fathom out why! ;-)>> Hullo, Damian! The hint is in my nickname ;-) <<I wonder whereabouts in Edinburgh our friend Hongkonger is hanging out?>> The answer has been added to my nickname. <<I'm missing my native local accent more than I care to admit.>> I'm afraid I sound half English, a quarter Chinese, a quarter American, and not at all Scottish. By the time I came to Edinburgh, my brain had already lost a good deal of its plasticity. I'm exposed to a good spectrum of accents through my interactions with patients. Love the Morningside grannies at Astley Ainslie... but woe betide the Anglo-Chinese medic who encounters an inebriated, working-class Scotsman.
Damian and HongKong:
As you have said, a story (storey) and a floor are synonyms in the US, but not the same thing in Europe...and that's the rub. On a related note, you'll often see buildings in the US where the 1st floor is labeled the Ground Floor, but the floor immediately above is...the 2nd floor. So the elevator buttons read B, G, 2, and so on.
I was being a wee bit facetious, HK! Hong Kong must be a really nice place to visit and I know the weather in Edinburgh has been really nice today as my Mum told me so on the phone earlier.....here in London it's been a wee bit on the parky side and very cloudy....apparenbtly there's a North/South split in the British weather right now. 20C is nice and pleasant but I'm not quite sure how bearable 45F is without checking or doing a quick mental conversion...somewhere around 9C I would guess...that won't do in the middle of May would it?
EH8 - west of Holyrood Park - ah yes, around the Queens Drive area...nice! Have you scaled the Salisbury Craigs yet? My family home is away to the west of you....the EH11 area...Corstorphine, within an elephant's trumpet sound of the Zoo if the wind is in the north east...if it's in the east it's the roars from Murrayfield we get! I'm hoping to settle in my own place in the Stockbridge area of the city - EH3 - sometime towards the end of the summer or sometime in the autumn as I don't envisage being here in London much beyond the end of July. Astley Ainslie - I know where it is - the Grange - and it's good to know you're interacting with the patients in there - it's mostly for people who've suffered strokes and brain injuries is it not? Morningside and old grannies just go together like cheese sarnies and Branston pickle.....it's the Edinburgh version of "posh English English RP" and those old dears carry it off to a tee, so much so that the Morningside accent is often referred to in a wee bit of a derogatory way. ***woe betide the Anglo-Chinese medic who encounters an inebriated, working-class Scotsman*** Och - he's only a figment of your imagination,my friend - there's nae such creature d'ye ken! ;-) Well, perhaps in dear old Glasgow which keeps on going roond an' roond.......as wi' this wee chappie oot on the toon on a Saturday night in Glesca (Glaswegian for Glasgow): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrVkDqPsbM Jasper: Maybe we should all live and work in bungalows on both sides of the Pond, but think of all the space that would take up? Not worth it really is it? Let's agree to disagree over the numbers of the floors and storeys....or is it stories? No - it's storeys..... I'm buggered - been a hard day......goodnight from Putney, SW15.
Damian said,"Jasper: Maybe we should all live and work in bungalows on both sides of the Pond, but think of all the space that would take up? Not worth it really is it?"
That's really very true indeed, Damian. In parts of the US, you can travel 100s of kilometers without seeing another house, while Europe's overpopulated. Which leads us to this: American solutions won't necessarily work in Europe, and vice versa...
<<Thousands of *miles* you mean. we don't have kilometers here. >>
Do you live in a warp in space-time or something? Is the distance travelled by light in free space in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second different in your warp?
Hi, I also live in S.Korea, Kyeong-nam province.
So, it's no use telling you,.
Damian: <<Och - he's only a figment of your imagination,my friend - there's nae such creature d'ye ken!>>
Haha, from the non-Scot's perspective, he does exist... hopefully not in the hospital setting, but around where I live, the tramps and drunkards occasionally get into little arguments around midnight. Listening to their hoarse grunts and growls, I can't make sense of anything they're trying to say. Should the argument escalate beyond an exchange of words and land someone in A&E, I really hope the on-call doctor is Scottish! I wish I lived around the Queen's Drive area. I'm further west of that, near Nicolson Street, hence the tramps and drunkards at midnight =p Jasper: <<...while Europe's overpopulated.>> That's what Americans would think, and a good proportion of the English would agree. As a Hongkonger, however, I have a hard time sympathising with the likes of Migration Watch and their clarion calls in the Daily Telegraph. You don't know what population density is until you've been to Hong Kong...
Damian: <<those old dears carry it off to a tee, so much so that the Morningside accent is often referred to in a wee bit of a derogatory way.>>
Aw, how sad. There's nothing better than a posh Scottish accent. Refinement and clarity combined with the friendly lilt of the Scottish... is that not the ideal pairing? It fits the grannies well, but it would also be terribly attractive on a young lady. Good grief, I always end up double posting. Please excuse me.
Miles said, "Thousands of *miles* you mean. we don't have kilometers here."
Miles, I was trying to speak in terms that they would understand. I believe the US is the only place that uses miles anymore.
Jasper: <<I believe the US is the only place that uses miles anymore.>>
The US and the UK. Whilst the UK has metricised 99% of its weights and measures, miles - not kilometres - are used for distances and speed limits on road signs. |