Which preposition is correct in this sentence?
There is a pharmacy on/in/at the 2nd floor.
Learn English – “There is a pharmacy {on/in/at} the 2nd floor.” – which preposition is correct
prepositions
Related Solutions
Both are grammatical and the usage seems to depend somewhat on where the (native) speaker is from, with "of the building" seeming to be more common in American English and "in the building" winning out in Australian English.
For context, "top floor of the building" gets 9.5 million hits on google.com.au and whereas "top floor in the building" gets 47 million. Using google.com (not the Australian version), "in the building" gets just under 2 million, while the result for "of the building" stays the same.
If my friend lived on a college campus like this one:
then I would ask:
- Which building do you live in?
- Which floor do you live on?
- Which room do you live in?
If the university had more than one campus (say, an east campus and a west campus), then I might begin with:
- Which campus do you live on?
Best Answer
We say that something is on the 2nd floor. A Google ngram of the three phrases makes it clear. Examples where "in" or "at" were used: "Interior of the east wall at the second-floor level." "When the elevator platform was at the second floor, ...." "Occasionally, someone's girlfriend or mom would be walking in the second-floor hall ...." "... an opening in the second-floor fire escape ...".