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From: Jeff Carter <spam.carter.not@spam.innocon.com>
Subject: Re: What is a queue?
Date: 1999/02/10
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Date: 1999-02-10T00:00:00+00:00
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Michael F Brenner wrote a long message about queues, which he defined as
having such operations as Add_To_Left and Add_To_Right.

All additions to a queue go on the tail, and all removals come from the
head. A structure which allows additions and removals from both ends is
a dequeue (pronounced deck).

The concept of a queue comes from the way people engage in ordered
waiting for something, such as service from a teller at a bank. The
first person to arrive is served and the others wait in order. Most
non-American English speakers call this collection of waiting people a
queue, and say the people are standing in a queue. Americans call it a
line, and say the people are waiting in line.

Of course, people waiting in [a queue | line] behave more like a list
than a (software) queue because people can leave the queue from any
position at any time, sometimes people cut in ahead of the tail of the
queue, and so on.

Brenner gives a derivation of the word queue from mathematical diagrams;
however, I think this is incorrect. Queue derives from the French word
queue, which means tail and predates the diagrams in question.
-- 
Jeff Carter
E-mail: carter commercial-at innocon [period | full stop] com
"You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"
Monty Python & the Holy Grail