Endien or Endian?

Saturday, 29. September 2007, 17:25:44

I used to write Endian, but was always corrected to write it Endien. I look online and google reports most usage as Endian. Wikipedia also uses Endian. Which one is it? I'm defining some Integer components and I don't want a mispelling to live on.

Project V: Update (Sept 28, 2007)Building a Development Environment (or Language)

Comments

IIRC, the word Endian (in computing) comes from Jonathan Swifts Gulliver Stories. There were two Ends of Eggs, for which lilliputs were figthing between. So what should be a correct form derived from "End" in English? I mostly have seen "Endian", and always used that one. Recently I started also seeing "Endien". Maybe it's more correct (or mordern) derivative from the word "End"?

By vladas, # 29. September 2007, 18:06:39

I've decided to correct my old usage and am using Endian for the time being. Yeah, a nationality or type of person would be "an". Canadian. American. Mexican. Asian. So if it's someone that is little or big "End"-ian, then Endian would logically be the correct spelling. Unless I see something different, I'll use this. I feel better now that there's actually an explanation behind it. I did hear about the story, just didn't make the link to "kind of person".

By Vorlath, # 29. September 2007, 18:14:48

Yes, if we speak about two different clanes of computer models, which I think was original meaning, these could be accounted as nations. Otherwise it would be just an egg end, for which is possible to say "Endien" in English.
I'm afraid, most mordern programmers just forgot the initial semantic of this term. Sometimes the particular syntax of derivatives depends on semantics. In any language, IMHO.

By vladas, # 29. September 2007, 18:33:10

Anonymous writes:

As far as I can tell from the dictionary -ien isn't even a real suffix. Perhaps it is in another language and came from usage by some French computer scientist or some such.

By anonymous user, # 17. October 2007, 06:55:24