Why do we call it an elevator or lift?

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NewTime
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24 Feb 2018, 12:04 pm

Doesn't it also go down?

lostonearth35
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24 Feb 2018, 12:47 pm

And we also call moving stairs an escalator, even though they are built to take you down as well as up.

Well, they had to call them something.

Esmerelda Weatherwax
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24 Feb 2018, 1:13 pm

In German, it's a Personenaufzug - a People-Up-Train. I used to laugh and ask where the Personenzuzug was (People-Down-Train).

German has a lot of this. My vacuum cleaner was a Staubsauger - a dustsucker :-) . Yep, that's about right.

I've been told that Dutch is even more direct but never had the chance to live where I could learn the language.

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kraftiekortie
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24 Feb 2018, 4:51 pm

it sounds much better than "Conveyer machine" or whatever.......

SaveFerris
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24 Feb 2018, 5:03 pm

My first time in an elevator was an uplifting experience but the second time let me down.

Farting in an elevator is wrong on so many levels

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kraftiekortie
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24 Feb 2018, 5:06 pm

Calling the "conveyer thing" an elevator was a marketing ploy. Better than calling it a "decelerator".....

How many "decelerators" would have been sold?

nick007
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24 Feb 2018, 5:51 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

it sounds much better than "Conveyer machine" or whatever.......

That term sounds like something people would of called it in the old days like how they referred to airplanes as flying machines.

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kraftiekortie
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24 Feb 2018, 6:37 pm

Or cars as "horseless carriages" LOL

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26 Feb 2018, 2:41 pm

Esmerelda Weatherwax wrote:

German has a lot of this. My vacuum cleaner was a Staubsauger - a dustsucker :-)

. Yep, that's about right.

Dustsucker is what it's called in Norwegian too; støvsuger.

We say heis for elevator/lift (hoist), and rulletrapp (roll stairs) for escalators.

I've never thought of the literal names of these things, other than simply something to call it.

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