So I was at the Perl Mongers meeting last night in London, got talking to someone who assured me there was a story behind the terms big endian and little endian. I was somewhat skeptical but they went on to explain that the terms origin comes from the 1726 novel, Gulliver’s Travels by Johnathan Swift and has something to do with an egg.
Anyhow, since then I’ve done a little bit of research and it turns out that the terms do indeed come from Gulliver’s Travels. Basically Lilliput and Blefuscu were to rival groups, at war over the way they ate their soft boiled eggs. The Lilliput said that the best way was to open them at the little end (small endian) while the Blefuscu considered it better to open them at the big end (big endian). This is apparently where the terms originate.
I’d still love to know who first coined the terms and if there are any more weird computer terms that have their origins from bizarre places… as a side note, did you know that Charles Babbage invented the Cowcatcher?