Extending the idea further, the same drag-and-drop interaction is used to reference multiple cells. Upon dropping the cells, the user is offered a list of commonly used functions based on the data types the cells hold.
Read more here: prabros.com/bean/design#referencing-multiple-cells
Starting off, we considered the interaction of referencing a cell.
The user selects a cell [noun] and then drags it to the target cell to create a reference [verb]. To use Jef Raskin's terms, this is a noun-verb construction.
Read more at: prabros.com/bean/design