An Oxymoron takes the motion stairs to get a drink

Here is an oxymoron that I don't think people mention very often: a down escalator. You find them in the mall next to the up descender. if you haven't caught on, the problem is that something that escalates can only take something upward.

I don't think that people complain about this often. I don't remember hearing about a protest when Nashville's first escalator opened at Harvey's department store.

Theoretically, you could have the same complaint about an elevator. At least with an elevator, the same device alternates raising and lowering people, elevating half of the time. With escalators, there's one that always goes up and another that always goes down. at least in Britain, they call an elevator a "lift." I suppose that if they had to have another name for one going down, it would have been called a "drop" and everyone would have preferred taking the stairs.

On an unrelated note, I have thought that at a party, the first drink would be a "Freshment" and each subsequent drink would then be a "Refreshment." However, one of my friends contends that the very first time a newborn baby has something to drink, that could be a freshment, but every time in their life afterwards would be a refreshment.

I give up. I'll save the arguments for the linguists.