floor 'ground'

[Laurence Horn]

I've never encountered this substitution, or the conflation in this direction, but I remember it in the opposite direction.  I don't know if it's specifically New York area, like "stand on (line)" and "take"/"bring" reversals, but I remember people, including I think me as a child, being corrected for saying "(fall on) the ground" for "the floor" when inside-- 

"Don't eat that--it fell on the ground"
"You mean the floor"

LH

On Sep 26, 2014, at 4:41 AM, Arnold Zwicky 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.
> 
> .....
> 
> i'd be happy to relay responses on this list to Chris [Hansen].
> 
> arnold
> 
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org