I'm glad someone posted the Fibonacci sequence, as I read through the thread I was positive that's what the OP was looking for.
Isn't it funny how just a simple word can get so many people's hackles raised? I used the word "vendor" to describe a customer to my co-worker a week ago, she got very irritated with me because he doesn't supply any goods or services to us. But his address is stored in the database that our accounting software has labeled "vendors".