Door dwell, hoistway, and terminal landing are all terms from the jargon of elevator design and maintenance. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Language of Elevators”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I came across the most lovely term the other day, door dwell.
Door dwell.
Can you guess what that is? Door dwell?
It’s when you don’t want to leave and you’re just hanging around saying goodbye without going back to your car.
That’s kind of nice, right? It’s like doorknob hanging, right? But that’s not what door dwell is.
Is it D-O-O-R?
Yes, D-O-O-R.
Second word is D-W-E-L-L.
And it’s a trade jargon term.
Oh, I don’t know it.
What is it?
It is the time it takes the elevator doors to close once you’ve boarded.
Once the last person gets on there.
That makes a lot of sense because in retail they talk about dwell times in aisles and at registers and in different spaces.
Dwell time is something you take into account as an architect.
Okay.
Yeah, dwell.
Isn’t that interesting?
I’ve always loved the word dwell.
And then to find door dwell, which is usually two to four seconds.
And so, of course, I’ve been reading about elevator jargon, which has fascinated me.
And the fact that a lot of building managers disabled the closed door button.
Why?
You know, the risk of lawsuits.
Oh, I see, because you can make it close on someone’s arm?
Yeah, yeah, so they don’t actually work, supposedly.
And hoistway is another one.
You can probably guess what hoistway is.
That’s the tall column of space that the elevator occupies?
Yeah, the elevator shaft is called the hoist way.
And my other favorite term from elevator language is terminal landing.
Oh, is that when the cable is cut and it falls unexpectedly?
Fortunately, no, no, no.
It’s the top and bottom elevator landing area.
Oh, the terminus, right.
Yeah, so all you poets out there, I want to read poems about door dwell and terminal landing.
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