How many stairs are there in this building?

[tufguy]

How many stairs are there in this building?

Do we need to say "stairs" or "steps"?

How many steps are there in this building?


I heard someone say in a video "How many stairs are there till up in this monument?" Is it correct to say "till up" here?

 

[Tarheel]

How many stairs are there in this building?

Do we need to say "stairs" or "steps"?

How many steps are there in this building?

I think the answer you are most likely to get is:

I don't know. I have never counted them.

As for "till up" I have no idea what that means.

(You can use "steps" if you insist. I wouldn't.)

 

[tedmc]

We usually talk about the number of staircases in a building. Steps or risers are part of a staircase.

 

[Tarheel]

Most people don't count the stairs unless they are obsessive-compulsive (like me).

 

[Yankee]

Yes, Staircases/Stairways/Flights of Stairs.

 

[Tdol]

How about How many stairs are there to the top of this building??

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

To me, "How many stairs are there in this building" is ambiguous. It's not clear whether it's asking about steps or stairways. The word stairs can mean either.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

How about How many stairs are there to the top of this building??

It's not clear whether it means steps or staircases.

 

[emsr2d2]

To me, "stairs" can only mean the individual steps or risers. If I wanted to know how many staircases there were, that's exactly the word I'd use.

 

[Phaedrus]

How many stairs are there in this building?

Interestingly, if are is emphasized (How many stairs are there in this building?), the sentence ceases to be a question about the number of stairs in the building and becomes instead an utterance of surprise at the great number of steps in the building, however many there are.

 

[Rover_KE]

Why do you want to know how many stairs there are in the building, tufguy?

 

[tufguy]

Why do you want to know how many stairs there are in the building, tufguy?

No, I was intersted in knowing the word that should be used here "stairs" or "steps". Now, I know "stairs" is the correct word.

 

[emsr2d2]

[STRIKE]No,[/STRIKE] I don't. I was interested [STRIKE]in knowing[/STRIKE] to know the word that should be used here - "stairs" or "steps". Now no comma here I know "stairs" is the correct word.

Note my corrections above. You still haven't set your spellchecker to English, have you? If you had, it would have alerted you to the fact that "intersted" isn't a word.

 

[GoesStation]

We still don't know whether you are asking about stairs (the individual treads you step on) or staircases (the flights of stairs that take you from floor to floor). Which is it?

 

[tufguy]

We still don't know whether you are asking about stairs (the individual treads you step on) or staircases (the flights of stairs that take you from floor to floor). Which is it?

I was asking about the "stairs" not "staircases".

 

[GoesStation]

I was asking about the "stairs" not "staircases".

That's a very unusual thing to ask about. Why do you want to know?

 

[emsr2d2]

It's only really relevant when talking about very tall buildings. A fairly common pub quiz question is "How many stairs are there from the bottom to the top of the Eiffel Tower?"

 

[GoesStation]

Note that the pub question is very specific. Few people would know the answer to "How many stairs are there in the Eiffel Tower?". You'd have to know how many stairs each staircase had and add them up.

 

[emsr2d2]

Regular pub quizzers would know the answer!

 

[probus]

It's only really relevant when talking about very tall buildings.

Very tall, though, can be a flexible concept. When I was courting my wife in Calcutta she lived on the top floor of a seven storey building. Although I was young and fit, I still found myself counting the steps up to her flat in that tropical heat. Seventy-eight was plenty even for an ardent young fellow like me.