PIGEONHOLES

A Hole for Pigeons

In medieval times pigeons were kept as domestic birds, not for racing but for their meat. Pigeon holes were the openings set in a wall or a purpose-built pigeon cote in which the birds nested.

Medieval rock cut pigeonholes, France

Post

By 1789, the arrangement of compartments in writing cabinets and offices used to sort and file documents had come to be known as pigeon holes because of their resemblance to the pigeon cote.

Why blog about pigeonholes? The staffroom had a recent make-over and the vintage pigeonholes were not needed anymore. I am not sure how old these are but they were here when I stared at Jeppe almost 20 year's ago. I have recycled them as storage for our office.

Old pigeonholes in the admin office

Verb

By the mid 19th century, pigeon hole was being used as a verb meaning either to put a matter to one side with the intention of coming back to it later, or to classify information, "pigeonhole it"

The Principle

'In mathematics, the pigeonhole principle states that if n items are put into m containers, with n>m, then at least one container must contain more than one item.

I learn something new everyday!

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon-hole_messagebox

www.sciencephoto.com/media/414425/view/medieval-rock-cut-pigeon-house-france

https://www.pinterest.de/pin/469922542354282540/?amp_client_id=CLIENT_ID(_)&mweb_unauth_id={{default.session}}&amp_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.de%2Famp%2Fpin%2F469922542354282540%2F

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle