floor 'ground'

[Benjamin Barrett]

I recently heard this on a British program, probably Britain's Got Talent. I thought it was really odd but assumed it was BrE. 

The Oxford Dictionary site lists it as informal usage: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/floor.

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA

Learn Ainu! https://sites.google.com/site/aynuitak1/home

On Sep 26, 2014, at 1:41 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU> wrote:

> from Chris Hansen on a Facebook lgbt group:
> 
> To the linguists among us: Arnold and Chris [Waigl] among many others. =
> I've noticed recently that some people now use "floor" to mean "ground", =
> as in "He was walking down the street and suddenly fell to the floor." =
> Another FB friend in another group (the Empress of Washington Post's =
> Style Invitational devotees, if you must know) has never heard this =
> usage. I've searched but my Googling has obviously fallen victim to my =
> preconceptions because I haven't found anything useful. Does anyone here =
> have any insights on this? Perhaps some written articles? I know this =
> isn't the perfect group in which to ask this but, not being a =
> linguistics person I'd feel embarrassed to barge in on one, ask the =
> question, and then leave again once I'd found the answer. That would be =
> too much like "rubber band management". I'd be extremely grateful for =
> any thoughts.

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