title: c() function in R means
body: <p>What does the 'c' in the <strong><em><code>c()</code></em></strong> function of R really stand for?</p>
  
  <p>My efforts to answer this question gave conflicting results (<em>Big names in the R community disagree</em>):</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Some (<em><code>Crawley - 2007; Zuur et al. - 2009; Matloff - 2011; and Cotton - 2013</code></em>) say it means "<strong>concatenate</strong>."</li>
  <li>Others (<em><code>Lander - 2014; Kabacoff - 2015; and Wickham - 2015</code></em>) say it means "<strong>combine</strong>."</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>We can write code just fine without knowing what the <code>c</code> means, but it's a mystery why an answer isn't agreed upon by very prominent figures in the R community.  </p>