Answer: What is the difference between “story” and “storey”
Are story and storey different? Yes and no; in most cases, it depends on what story means in a particular context. Find out more about these two words and what makes them different, as well as when and how to use them, with the help of some examples from Once Upon a Time, Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Series (Dead Until Dark) and Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (a lot of them, I know).
Bonus: some information about “history” and “floor”, as well!
The noun story can be used to talk about various kinds of descriptions, accounts, or reports. A story can be an entertaining description, a report about a certain event (published in a newspaper, for instance), an account of something that has happened, or the plot of a film, book, or play. It can be about something real that has happened to someone, or it can be invented. Other related words include storybook, storyline, and storyteller.
When I thought of the word story, the first thing that came to my mind was Once Upon a Time. First, we have Storybrooke. And let’s just think about how many times the word story is mentioned in that show! Here’s an example:
Emma Swan: You've clearly glommed onto my kid Henry's thing. They're just stories! The Mad Hatter is in Alice in Wonderland, a book - a book I actually read.
Jefferson: Stories. Stories! What's a story? When you were in high school, d'you learn about the Civil War?
Emma Swan: Yeah, of course.
Jefferson: How? D'you read about it, perchance, in a book? How's that any less real than any other book?
Emma Swan: History books are based on history.
Jefferson: And storybooks are based on what? Imagination. Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere.
Interestingly, this quote brings up the word "history" and connects it to story. I couldn’t help but notice that the word “history” includes the word “story” within it. The word “story” actually has its origin in Latin; the word “historia” meant "history, account, tale, story" and has its origin in Ancient Greek, where ἱστορία (historía) meant “learning through research, narration of what is learned”. Also, in many Romance languages and North Germanic languages, the word that means "history" can also mean "story". We have the French "histoire", the Romanian "istorie", the Danish "historie" and the Swedish "historia".
However, story has another meaning, as well, completely unrelated to that of descriptions, accounts, and reports. In American English, it is also used when referring to a floor or level of a building. It has the same meaning as storey, which is used in British English. As for the origin of "storey", I have found that it is often linked to that of "story". However, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says that "storey" (and "story", when referring to a floor of a building) comes from the Old French word “estorée” (building) and “estorer” (to build).
Here’s an example of the American story, from Dead Until Dark:
"Somebody killed Maudette in her apartment last night."
Gran and I were riveted. "When?" Gran asked, puzzled that she hadn't heard already.
"They just found her this very morning in her bedroom. Her boss tried to call her to find out why she hadn't shown up for work yesterday and today and got no answer, so he rode over and got the manager up, and they unlocked the place. You know she had the apartment across from Dee-Anne's?”
Bon Temps had only one bona fide apartment complex, a three-building, two-story U-shaped grouping, so we knew exactly where he meant.
And now, an example with storey, found in David Copperfield:
The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were opened and people's heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. […] We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle, and went in.
In the example taken from David Copperfield, storey is used meaning “floor” (top floor, in that case). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English offers a useful explanation when it comes to choosing the right word between story, storey, and floor. Story and storey can be used when talking about the structure of a building: you can say that the building is 20 stories high or that you’re living in a two-story house. However, you should use floor when you’re talking about where someone or something can be found in a building. You can say that you live in a four-storey building, though on the second floor.
You should also be careful when using the words in their plural form, as they’re also different. The plural for story is stories (regardless of its meaning), while the plural for storey is storeys.
Lastly, I’ll mention an interesting fact about floor numbering; we have what can be called the British convention and the American convention. What’s different about these two? The British consider the ground level as the ground floor, having the number 0; it is followed by the first floor (1), second floor (2), and so on. However, the Americans consider the ground level to be the first floor. Despite this, the storeys are counted the same in both cases. This way, a seven-storey building has seven covered floors: a ground floor and 6 upper floors. You just have to be careful what convention you’re using, as the top floor could be either the 6th floor or the 7th floor.
Sources: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, etymonline.
Bonus: some information about “history” and “floor”, as well!
The noun story can be used to talk about various kinds of descriptions, accounts, or reports. A story can be an entertaining description, a report about a certain event (published in a newspaper, for instance), an account of something that has happened, or the plot of a film, book, or play. It can be about something real that has happened to someone, or it can be invented. Other related words include storybook, storyline, and storyteller.
When I thought of the word story, the first thing that came to my mind was Once Upon a Time. First, we have Storybrooke. And let’s just think about how many times the word story is mentioned in that show! Here’s an example:
Emma Swan: You've clearly glommed onto my kid Henry's thing. They're just stories! The Mad Hatter is in Alice in Wonderland, a book - a book I actually read.
Jefferson: Stories. Stories! What's a story? When you were in high school, d'you learn about the Civil War?
Emma Swan: Yeah, of course.
Jefferson: How? D'you read about it, perchance, in a book? How's that any less real than any other book?
Emma Swan: History books are based on history.
Jefferson: And storybooks are based on what? Imagination. Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere.
Interestingly, this quote brings up the word "history" and connects it to story. I couldn’t help but notice that the word “history” includes the word “story” within it. The word “story” actually has its origin in Latin; the word “historia” meant "history, account, tale, story" and has its origin in Ancient Greek, where ἱστορία (historía) meant “learning through research, narration of what is learned”. Also, in many Romance languages and North Germanic languages, the word that means "history" can also mean "story". We have the French "histoire", the Romanian "istorie", the Danish "historie" and the Swedish "historia".
However, story has another meaning, as well, completely unrelated to that of descriptions, accounts, and reports. In American English, it is also used when referring to a floor or level of a building. It has the same meaning as storey, which is used in British English. As for the origin of "storey", I have found that it is often linked to that of "story". However, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica says that "storey" (and "story", when referring to a floor of a building) comes from the Old French word “estorée” (building) and “estorer” (to build).
Here’s an example of the American story, from Dead Until Dark:
"Somebody killed Maudette in her apartment last night."
Gran and I were riveted. "When?" Gran asked, puzzled that she hadn't heard already.
"They just found her this very morning in her bedroom. Her boss tried to call her to find out why she hadn't shown up for work yesterday and today and got no answer, so he rode over and got the manager up, and they unlocked the place. You know she had the apartment across from Dee-Anne's?”
Bon Temps had only one bona fide apartment complex, a three-building, two-story U-shaped grouping, so we knew exactly where he meant.
And now, an example with storey, found in David Copperfield:
The house swarmed with inmates. As we went up, doors of rooms were opened and people's heads put out; and we passed other people on the stairs, who were coming down. In glancing up from the outside, before we entered, I had seen women and children lolling at the windows over flower-pots; and we seemed to have attracted their curiosity, for these were principally the observers who looked out of their doors. […] We proceeded to the top-storey of the house. Two or three times, by the way, I thought I observed in the indistinct light the skirts of a female figure going up before us. As we turned to ascend the last flight of stairs between us and the roof, we caught a full view of this figure pausing for a moment, at a door. Then it turned the handle, and went in.
In the example taken from David Copperfield, storey is used meaning “floor” (top floor, in that case). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English offers a useful explanation when it comes to choosing the right word between story, storey, and floor. Story and storey can be used when talking about the structure of a building: you can say that the building is 20 stories high or that you’re living in a two-story house. However, you should use floor when you’re talking about where someone or something can be found in a building. You can say that you live in a four-storey building, though on the second floor.
You should also be careful when using the words in their plural form, as they’re also different. The plural for story is stories (regardless of its meaning), while the plural for storey is storeys.
Lastly, I’ll mention an interesting fact about floor numbering; we have what can be called the British convention and the American convention. What’s different about these two? The British consider the ground level as the ground floor, having the number 0; it is followed by the first floor (1), second floor (2), and so on. However, the Americans consider the ground level to be the first floor. Despite this, the storeys are counted the same in both cases. This way, a seven-storey building has seven covered floors: a ground floor and 6 upper floors. You just have to be careful what convention you’re using, as the top floor could be either the 6th floor or the 7th floor.
Sources: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, etymonline.