It was definitely added back in the DOS days due to lobbying from somebody, with data etc.
Something tickles my lonely little brain cell about it.
The old conversations on the subject are probably somewhere buried deep in the obsolete Yahoo! discussion forums, but since I don't have a password for that any more I cant check it. (Nor would I want to troll through the old fluff there, I don't think it had a search function).
But as Don says, it is quite typical of OOB maintenance stuff, somebody randomly queries something done back in the prehistoric days and expects us to be able to
instantly remember why the SDKFZ4321 has a left-handed cup holder fitted. Usually, our answer to that has to be along the lines of "we are just as clueless as you, mate"!
.
Andy