Because of an unfortunate temporary lapse of inspiration, we couldn’t think of any other names for the 2 pointers in a list node than “address” and “decrement,” so we called the functions CAR for “Contents of Address of Register” and CDR for “Contents of Decrement of Register.
— http://blog.fogus.me/2011/11/03/in-the-shadow-of-john-mccarthy/
