> And (in maths, at least) one maps something onto something else.

Yes, but that's the opposite of what you said earlier. You might map x onto 2*x, for example. Or, if you're talking about a collection, you might map the integers 0..10 on to double their value. Data first, then the way you're manipulating it. I'm a mathematician and this is what makes sense to me.

I would only say "map this function..." if the function itself is being manipulated somehow (mapped onto some other value).

When you consider that PHP is used by hundreds of thousands of non-native English speakers, I don’t really think you can make a legitimate claim that “English sentence order” trumps “consistent argument ordering”.

There’s enough viral videos online of how even neighbouring European counties order common sentences differently. Even little things like reading the time (half past the previous hour vs half to the next hour) and counting is written differently in different languages.

So modelling the order of parameters based on English vernacular doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for programming languages used by programmers of all nationalities.