Reminds me a bit of how in England the 1st floor is one floor above the ground, whereas in the USA the 1st floor IS the ground floor.
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Looking out the window, Picknar said, “Thoos, you do know we’re five stories up, right?” Thoos said, “Heh. We call this the basement, even though technically it’s not. But we call it that because it’s lower than the main house. And under here is the sub-basement, and then the sub-sub basement, and then the sub-sub-sub basement, and then the-” Exasperated, Rodrigo said, “I for one feel that jumping to our death is preferable to hearing more about sub-basements.” Going out the window, Thoos said, “No need for suicide yet. We can go along the roof. There’s no way to climb down, but there are ledges all the way around.” Thoos stood on the ledge, looking back at the others, and said, “I used to spend a lot of time on the roof as a teen, looking at the stars and dreaming of a more perilous life.” Picknar said, “Well, looks like your dreams came true.” Thoos said, “If you think being tortured is bad, just imagine having to attending the cocktail parties my parents used to make me go to.”
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Good thing you walked around a while to figure out your balance, Thoos, before you ventured out ledge walking. Hope you don’ have vertigo!
Thoos didn’t have to figure it out. The body’s language, balance, and other built-in responses already existed. The driver changed, not the vehicle.
Nicely put.
To get out of a jam, Thoos got into the jam.
If that’s the basement, wouldn’t escaping from it count as de-basement?
heh. 🙂
Then there are buildings like my office’s which have both a ground floor and a first floor.
In the Navy Deck 1 is the Main Deck and is usually well above the waterline. Deck 2 is below that, then Deck 3, 4, and on down to the keel. Above the Main Deck is the 01 Deck, then the 02 Deck, and upwards. I haven’t served on a civilian ship but will assume they use similar numbering.
I find the social pain and awkwardness of the filthy rich and arrogant below my notice. Reminds me of the French populace’s reaction to Marie Antoinette’s dismissal of the report they had no bread to eat. Let them eat guillotines.
On hearing “there is no bread” Marie Antoinette actually said “let them eat brioche then” which is slightly sweet kind of bread. This was a moderately sensible thing to say but it got translated into English as “let them eat cake then” because brioche has no direct translation to English. What she didn’t know is there was no brioche either.
The whole thing is apocryphal anyway. The first printed usage of “qu’ils mangent de la brioche” is found in Rousseau’s Confessions, written in 1767, and attributed to a non-named princess. At the time, Marie Antoinette was a child, not even a teen yet, still known as Maria Antonia, still living in Austria, and still unable to speak French.
Over two decades later, she got saddled with that phrase mostly due to her unpopularity. Since it’s a good meme, it convinced a lot of people that it’s true and has endured through the centuries.
The building I live in is built on a hill; the main entrance is on the third floor and you have to go down a flight of stairs to get to the second floor where I live. I’ve had some interesting conversations with delivery people about that.
I didn’t realize this was a window that leads outside. It’s really weird that it has outdoor buttons to get into their storage room.
@Prior, fair. The reason I gave (which is perhaps somewhat weak) was that window-washers wash (like in any really big building) on the outside. So they wanted it to unlock from the outside, but since it’s a cell, not from the inside. Anyhow, link here: https://www.baldwinpage.com/spacetrawler/2025/05/05/050525-buhhhh-tunnns/
Because americans are weird….
Why yes, yes we are.
Minor language nitpick:
“… imagine having to attending the cocktail parties…” should be
“… imagine having to attend the cocktail parties…”
Generally you only need one “-ing” suffix per action in a sentence. One might “have to be attending” or they might be “having to attend”, but not both. I’m not sure there’s a particular reason why one might choose one version over the other.
Seems odd that a people so obsessed with security would have wide walkable ledges around the floors of their buildings. With window unlocking buttons.