Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 19:17:04 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Eric Melville <eric@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Jasper O'Malley <jooji@nickelkid.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: offtopic: c questions Message-ID: <3BDCCA30.14BF82C2@mindspring.com> References: <3BDB0680.E8714908@mindspring.com> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0110281232550.85366-100000@cornflake.nickelkid.com> <20011028120915.B8117@FreeBSD.org>
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Eric Melville wrote: > > > I always figured it was just turning a noun into an adjective by slapping > > an "-ian" onto the noun, so that computing architectures that use the "big > > end" ordering are "bigendian." Other examples of the word construction are > > "reptilian" (from "reptile") and "Jeffersonian" (from "Jefferson"). > > Apparently it stems from Jonathon Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", a story in > which two groups of people are at war with each other because of the way > they prefer to eat eggs[1]. One group, the Big Endians, prefers to eat > the larger end of the egg first, while the Little Endians of course do the > opposite. > > [1] See also "bikeshed" Hence the joke... the derivation was from "Indian". See also "Laputa". -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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