> e.g. C++ also has functors, and they're completely unrelated to Haskell functors. You can't blame that one on Haskell or the functional community - the term

> e.g. C++ also has functors, and they're completely unrelated to Haskell functors. You can't blame that one on Haskell or the functional community - the term was already established before the C++ community decided to use it in spite of pre-existing definitions. They even ignored Prolog's pre-exising abuse of the term functor :-) A few similar terminological accidents of history come to mind, where the original definition of some term is now obscure and a different definition popular: - POSIX capabilities (as implemented in e.g. Linux), which are a security mechanism that has nothing to do with what security researchers have been calling capabilities since the 1970s - Microsoft operating systems using the term "Format" for creating a file system, despite the fact that it is impossible to actually format hard disks at the hardware level since the 1990s - imperative programming languages abusing the term "function" to mean procedures with side effects - "thunk" meaning a stub that emulates/bridges different calling conventions, instead of a call-by-name (or lazy) closure - "Tea Party" used to refer to a fine rock band from Canada