jadesfire

The concept of the one story dwelling is widespread - the US, Canada, Australia, the UK etc etc all have variations on the basic theme, although in the UK we almost exclusively use the term to mean a one story house (whereas elsewhere the house can have rooms built into the attic). From what I can gather, the actual word is Indian in origin, which may explain why it's so widespread in the UK and not so much in the US - our 'proud' *cough* colonial history meant we nicked all sorts of words. It does exist in the US (Google told me, so it must be true), but it seems to be a design term rather than one that the general public would use.

*tilts head* I'm not sure if I helped or hindered there... *butts back out*