In most elevators around the world, there are buttons to keep the doors open and also to get them to close. I've only seen symbols on them. Once, however, in the US, one gentleman got in, and instead of pressing the close button, pressed on the open button. So the doors, which were just going to close, opened again.

He complained - Why do they have these symbols, why can't they they just write Open and Close?

I've wondered about this every since - is it an American thing to have an expectation to have text everywhere? I have never heard anyone complain about those symbols before or since!