Maybe it was to avoid confusion with Lisp's "cons" which conventionally (or always? It's been a while...) adds to the head of a list, whereas "cat" is a bit clo

Maybe it was to avoid confusion with Lisp's "cons" which conventionally (or always? It's been a while...) adds to the head of a list, whereas "cat" is a bit closer to adding to the tail. This is pure speculation on my part.