# What is the proper word for a passenger conveyor at airports? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012 "2013-03-26T15:56:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boozahol_Squid_P.I)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/21 "2013-03-26T22:07:24Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Pretty unimpressive order of magnitude there, guy. Though **friedo** did set the bar pretty high. I’m not here to get in a +measuring contest with friedo. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/22 "2013-03-26T22:21:08Z")
I am tired out from along days traveling, and my feet and/arms are hurting. If I want to stand still on it I will. Fuck you. You can walk around me or you can relax and get over yourself and your oh-so-important need to be somewhere two seconds sooner for a moment. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/23 "2013-03-26T22:49:56Z")
The wiki entry on [slidewalk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slidewalk) suggests that the term applies to larger scale streets that move that are capable of supporting buildings, and that it originated with H.G. Wells in _When The Sleeper Wakes_. I still like that term for conventional moving sidewalks, as it is the same concept, just a matter of scale, and the term is nifty. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/24 "2013-03-26T22:50:55Z")
Hey you. And you and you and you. I’m older than you. I have leg problems. I can walk short distances but longer walks, like the mile plus between terminals, are physically painful. No, I don’t need a wheelchair. I don’t need to tie one up or get an attendant to push me. That’s simply insulting to those who require them. I stand on the right to rest my legs and don’t get in your way at all. You don’t know who I am or why I’m standing there. I am legion. Grow up. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/25 "2013-03-26T22:59:45Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > The wiki entry on [slidewalk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slidewalk) suggests that the term applies to larger scale streets that move that are capable of supporting buildings, and that it originated with H.G. Wells in _When The Sleeper Wakes_. Slidewalk as a word is not in the Wells book, at least not in the two editions I searched. An ngrams search seems to confirm that Heinlein coined the term. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/26 "2013-03-26T23:08:48Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > I hate airports. I hate flying. If I work it right, I’ll never have to fly again. Good! One less person to get in my way. 😉 I call them travelators or moving walkways, but I’m loving the term “slidewalk” (I hadn’t heard it before today.) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/27 "2013-03-26T23:34:10Z")
My airport has them but very few people actually use them. I did see someone going the wrong way on one the other day (they didn’t appear to be having fun or being silly and yes they were an adult.) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/28 "2013-03-26T23:38:37Z")
“Moving walkway” is the term I have always heard traveling around the USA, with “People mover” used more often for tram-type rigs that take you between terminals. Meanwhile, at SJU it has been since some time back when I could take my own water through the checkpoint that theirs have actually _moved_, so I would not know what we’d call them around here… ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/29 "2013-03-26T23:58:01Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Hey you. And you and you and you. > > I’m older than you. I have leg problems. I can walk short distances but longer walks, like the mile plus between terminals, are physically painful. No, I don’t need a wheelchair. I don’t need to tie one up or get an attendant to push me. That’s simply insulting to those who require them. I stand on the right to rest my legs and don’t get in your way at all. You don’t know who I am or why I’m standing there. I am legion. > > Grow up. I sympathize, but technically I don’t think the complainers are talking about those people who stand on the right. They are complaining about those who make it impossible to walk on the thing by either standing side by side with another person (i.e. one person standing on the left), or by putting their luggage beside themselves and blocking the left side. It’s the age-old complaint about the clueless who don’t understand about standing on the right and walking on the left (or the other way around in some countries). Personally, I don’t like those things and I prefer to walk on the regular floor. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/30 "2013-03-27T01:29:23Z")
> [@Blakeyrat](#): > > There are also some known as “buses” and in some airports (like Sea-Tac) “subways”. Or at Washington Dulles, “moon buggies”. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/31 "2013-03-27T03:34:13Z")
Would an airplane on one of those slidewalks be able to take off? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/32 "2013-03-27T04:57:56Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > My airport has them but very few people actually use them. I did see someone going the wrong way on one the other day (they didn’t appear to be having fun or being silly and yes they were an adult.) I’ve always wanted to try that, to see how difficult it would be to cover the full distance going the wrong way. I know I can do it on escalators. ---
**Author:** ![Space\_Vegetable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Space\_Vegetable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Space_Vegetable)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/33 "2013-03-27T09:19:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > An ngrams search seems to confirm that Heinlein coined the term. Heinlein was using it in in 1947 or 1948, but Fritz Leiber seems to have used it first in his story _Sanity_, published in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1944. You can see this in a Google Books search, or [here](http://www.jessesword.com/sf/view/394) or [here](http://www.answers.com/topic/slidewalk-1). [This page](http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=352) claims Leiber’s story dates from 1941, but I think it’s wrong, as it conflicts with [this list of stories in Astounding](http://www.andrew-may.com/asf/list.htm) and the info Google finds. Here’s a [video on YouTube showing a moving sidewalk in operation in the year 1900](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjpCVQgKZsc&feature=player_embedded). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/34 "2013-03-27T15:02:58Z")
You appear to be right. _Brave New Words_ also gives Leiber’s 1944 usage as first. Like Wells, Heinlein used the concept earlier but not the name. He called them roads throughout “The Roads Must Roll”. However, he used the word repeatedly from 1947 on and most people associate the term with him and he falsely gets retroactive credit for the 1940 story. It’s another example of the weird way that derivative science fiction is thought to be inventive because the real-world items have been totally forgotten while science fiction lives on. Moving sidewalks were found everywhere in early century popular science articles after that Paris Expo use you cite, which is where it really caught on. Today you can find several websites dedicated to unearthing these things, but for decades this was the province of specialist historians. A huge hunk of history hidden in plain sight. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/35 "2013-03-27T15:25:21Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > As far as I can remember, the annoying recordings at the end almost always use the phrase “moving walkway”. (You know, the automated recording that says something like, “The moving walkway is coming to an end. Please watch your step.”) Most of my flying in the last few years has been through Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis, though, so maybe it’s a Midwestern regionalism. Yeah. I can clearly hear in my head the female voice at O’Hare: “Caution! The moving walkway is ending.” ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012/36 "2013-03-27T15:30:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah. I can clearly hear in my head the female voice at O’Hare: “Caution! The moving walkway is ending.” Too many trips through ORD in my life; that woman’s voice is etched in my brain. “Caution. The moving walkway is now ending. Please look down.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-proper-word-for-a-passenger-conveyor-at-airports/654012.md?page=1)