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Annvan Posted 18 years ago
Vocabulary

elevator buttons in the U.S.

This may seem like a bizarre question, but a student of mine has asked this, so here goes: Is it true that American elevators (BrE: lifts) don't have a "0" button?
In Europe we have the ground floor or "0", the first floor up is "1", and so on.
Thanks in advance!
  

Top answer

I'm not American, but it's probably right, as they don't use our ground floor/floor zero name. e. you walk off the street straight into the first floor.

— Anonymous

  • I'm not American, but it's probably right, as they don't use our ground floor/floor zero name.
  • e.
  • you walk off the street straight into the first floor.
  • So they wouldn't need a G or 0 button, as those floor names don't exist there.
  • Nona
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11 Answers
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I'm not American, but it's probably right, as they don't use our ground floor/floor zero name. What we call the ground floor they call the first floor - i.e. you walk off the street straight into the first floor.

So they wouldn't need a G or 0 button, as those floor names don't exist there.

Nona
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We do sometimes have a "G" button, or "A" for "Atrium" or if there are parking garages we may have a "P" or "P1", "P2", but I don't recall ever seeing a "0" button.
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Why Atrium? Isn't that a "big" word to use for an entrance or.. ?
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Hi,

An 'atrium' is really a large open area in the centre of a building, that goes up through one or several floors.

Imagine a two-floor-high entrance to an office building. ie you walk in on the ground floor, and the floor above consists of a "half-floor" that does not extend all the way to the front of the building. It's this floor that is often marked as 'atrium' in an elevato
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Very old elevators (I am thinking now of the defunct Krauss department store in New Orleans) might have an M, for "mezzanine." That's also a half-floor midway between ground and the next full story up.
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CliveHi,

An 'atrium' is really a large open area in the centre of a building, that goes up through one or several floors.

Imagine a two-floor-high entrance to an office building. ie you walk in on the ground floor, and the floor above consists of a "half-floor" that does not extend all the way to the front of the building. It's this floor that is often m
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Wow! Never realized you could learn so much from a 'bizarre question'! Thanks a lot everybody! :-)
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An additional point of interest: there are, indeed, buildings (and their elevators) in the U.S. that have no designated 13th floor.
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AnnvanWow! Never realized you could learn so much from a 'bizarre question'! Thanks a lot everybody! :-)
That's part of the beauty of this site.[L]
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When one of my daughters was just learning to count, we asked her if she could count backwards from 10. She counted easily from 10 down to one. Wondering if she knew about zero, my husband asked her what would come next. Demonstrating that she had learned how to count backwards in the elevator of my mother's apartment building, she proudly announced "basement!"
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