Editing Pigeonhole principle (section)

==Etymology==
[[Image:Pigeon-hole messagebox 3.jpg|thumb|Pigeon-hole messageboxes at [[Stanford University]]]]

Dirichlet published his works in both French and German, using either the German {{lang|de|Schubfach}} or the French {{lang|fr|[[wikt:tiroir|tiroir]]}}. The strict original meaning of these terms corresponds to the English ''[[wikt:drawer|drawer]]'', that is, an ''open-topped box that can be slid in and out of the cabinet that contains it''. (Dirichlet wrote about distributing pearls among drawers.) These terms morphed to ''[[Pigeon-hole messagebox|pigeonhole]]'' in the sense of a ''small open space in a desk, cabinet, or wall for keeping letters or papers'', metaphorically rooted in structures that house pigeons.

Because furniture with pigeonholes is commonly used for storing or sorting things into many categories (such as letters in a post office or room keys in a hotel), the translation ''pigeonhole'' may be a better rendering of Dirichlet's original "drawer". That understanding of the term ''pigeonhole'', referring to some furniture features, is fading—especially among those who do not speak English natively but as a [[lingua franca]] in the scientific world—in favor of the more pictorial interpretation, literally involving pigeons and holes. The suggestive (though not misleading) interpretation of "pigeonhole" as "[[dovecote]]" has lately found its way back to a German back-translation of the "pigeonhole principle" as the "{{lang|de|Taubenschlagprinzip}}".<ref>{{cite book|page= 367|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-r1ywhuy0YC | title=Diskrete Mathematik | isbn=9783833455292 | last1=Zimmermann | first1=Karl-Heinz | year=2006 | publisher=Books on Demand }}</ref>

Besides the original terms "{{lang|de|Schubfachprinzip}}" in German<ref>{{cite book|page=13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FculDgAAQBAJ | title=The Induction Book | isbn=9780486811994 | last1=Weintraub | first1=Steven H. | date=17 May 2017 | publisher=Courier Dover Publications }}</ref> and "{{lang|fr|Principe des tiroirs}}" in [[French language|French]],<ref>{{cite book|page=490 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UyIfgBIwLMQC 
| title=Mathematics Dictionary | isbn=9780412990410 | last1=James | first1=R. C. | date=31 July 1992 | publisher=Springer }}</ref> other literal translations are still in use in [[Arabic language|Arabic]] ({{lang|ar|"مبدأ برج الحمام"}}), [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] ("{{lang|bg|принцип на чекмеджетата}}"), [[Chinese language|Chinese]] ("{{lang|zh|抽屉原理}}"), [[Danish language|Danish]] ("{{lang|da|Skuffeprincippet}}"), [[Dutch language|Dutch]] ("{{lang|nl|ladenprincipe}}"), [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] ("{{lang|hu|skatulyaelv}}"), [[Italian language|Italian]] ("{{lang|it|principio dei cassetti}}"), [[Japanese language|Japanese]] ("{{lang|ja|引き出し論法}}"), [[Persian language|Persian]] ("{{lang|fa|اصل لانه کبوتری}}"), [[Polish language|Polish]] ("{{lang|pl|zasada szufladkowa}}"), [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] ("{{lang|pt|Princípio das Gavetas}}"), [[Swedish language|Swedish]] ("{{lang|sv|Lådprincipen}}"), [[Turkish language|Turkish]] ("{{lang|tr|çekmece ilkesi}}"), and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] ("{{lang|vi|nguyên lý hộp}}").