JargonFile/entries/foo.txt

foo

/foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. [very common] Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files (esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variable s used in syntax examples. See also bar , baz , qux , quux , garply , waldo , fred , plugh , xyzzy , thud. When foo is used in connection with bar it has generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR ( Fucked Up Beyond All Repair or Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition ), later modified to foobar. Early versions of the Jargon File interpreted this change as a post-war bowdlerization, but it it now seems more likely that FUBAR was itself a derivative of foo perhaps influenced by German furchtbar (terrible) foobar may actually have been the original form. For, it seems, the word foo itself had an immediate prewar history in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the Smokey Stover comic strip published from about 1930 to about 1952. Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense phrases such as Notary Sojac and 1506 nix nix. The word foo frequently appeared on license plates of cars, in nonsense sayings in the background of some frames (such as He who foos last foos best or Many smoke but foo men chew ), and Holman had Smokey say Where there's foo, there's fire. According to the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion Holman claimed to have found the word foo on the bottom of a Chinese figurine. This is plausible; Chinese statuettes often have apotropaic inscriptions, and this one was almost certainly the Mandarin Chinese word fu (sometimes transliterated foo ), which can mean happiness or prosperity when spoken with the rising tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese restaurants are properly called fu dogs ). English speakers' reception of Holman's foo nonsense word was undoubtedly influenced by Yiddish feh and English fooey and fool. Holman's strip featured a firetruck called the Foomobile that rode on two wheels. The comic strip was tremendously popular in the late 1930s, and legend has it that a manufacturer in Indiana even produced an operable version of Holman's Foomobile. According to the Encyclopedia of American Comics, Foo fever swept the U.S., finding its way into popular songs and generating over 500 Foo Clubs. The fad left foo references embedded in popular culture (including a couple of appearances in Warner Brothers cartoons of 1938-39; notably in Robert Clampett's Daffy Doc of 1938, in which a very early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying SILENCE IS FOO! ) When the fad faded, the origin of foo was forgotten. One place foo is known to have remained live is in the U.S. military during the WWII years. In 1944-45, the term foo fighters was in use by radar operators for the kind of mysterious or spurious trace that would later be called a UFO (the older term resurfaced in popular American usage in 1995 via the name of one of the better grunge-rock bands). Because informants connected the term directly to the Smokey Stover strip, the folk etymology that connects it to French feu (fire) can be gently dismissed. The U.S. and British militaries frequently swapped slang terms during the war (see kluge and kludge for another important example) Period sources reported that FOO became a semi-legendary subject of WWII British-army graffiti more or less equivalent to the American Kilroy. Where British troops went, the graffito FOO was here or something similar showed up. Several slang dictionaries aver that FOO probably came from Forward Observation Officer, but this (like the contemporaneous FUBAR ) was probably a backronym. Forty years later, Paul Dickson's excellent book Words (Dell, 1982, ISBN 0-440-52260-7) traced Foo to an unspecified British naval magazine in 1946, quoting as follows: Mr. Foo is a mysterious Second World War product, gifted with bitter omniscience and sarcasm. Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that hacker usage actually sprang from FOO, Lam
Initial import of entries 2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00			`foo`

			/foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. [very common] Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files (esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variable s used in syntax examples. See also bar , baz , qux , quux , garply , waldo , fred , plugh , xyzzy , thud. When foo is used in connection with bar it has generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR ( Fucked Up Beyond All Repair or Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition ), later modified to foobar. Early versions of the Jargon File interpreted this change as a post-war bowdlerization, but it it now seems more likely that FUBAR was itself a derivative of foo perhaps influenced by German furchtbar (terrible) foobar may actually have been the original form. For, it seems, the word foo itself had an immediate prewar history in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the Smokey Stover comic strip published from about 1930 to about 1952. Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense phrases such as Notary Sojac and 1506 nix nix. The word foo frequently appeared on license plates of cars, in nonsense sayings in the background of some frames (such as He who foos last foos best or Many smoke but foo men chew ), and Holman had Smokey say Where there's foo, there's fire. According to the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion Holman claimed to have found the word foo on the bottom of a Chinese figurine. This is plausible; Chinese statuettes often have apotropaic inscriptions, and this one was almost certainly the Mandarin Chinese word fu (sometimes transliterated foo ), which can mean happiness or prosperity when spoken with the rising tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese restaurants are properly called fu dogs ). English speakers' reception of Holman's foo nonsense word was undoubtedly influenced by Yiddish feh and English fooey and fool. Holman's strip featured a firetruck called the Foomobile that rode on two wheels. The comic strip was tremendously popular in the late 1930s, and legend has it that a manufacturer in Indiana even produced an operable version of Holman's Foomobile. According to the Encyclopedia of American Comics, Foo fever swept the U.S., finding its way into popular songs and generating over 500 Foo Clubs. The fad left foo references embedded in popular culture (including a couple of appearances in Warner Brothers cartoons of 1938-39; notably in Robert Clampett's Daffy Doc of 1938, in which a very early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying SILENCE IS FOO! ) When the fad faded, the origin of foo was forgotten. One place foo is known to have remained live is in the U.S. military during the WWII years. In 1944-45, the term foo fighters was in use by radar operators for the kind of mysterious or spurious trace that would later be called a UFO (the older term resurfaced in popular American usage in 1995 via the name of one of the better grunge-rock bands). Because informants connected the term directly to the Smokey Stover strip, the folk etymology that connects it to French feu (fire) can be gently dismissed. The U.S. and British militaries frequently swapped slang terms during the war (see kluge and kludge for another important example) Period sources reported that FOO became a semi-legendary subject of WWII British-army graffiti more or less equivalent to the American Kilroy. Where British troops went, the graffito FOO was here or something similar showed up. Several slang dictionaries aver that FOO probably came from Forward Observation Officer, but this (like the contemporaneous FUBAR ) was probably a backronym. Forty years later, Paul Dickson's excellent book Words (Dell, 1982, ISBN 0-440-52260-7) traced Foo to an unspecified British naval magazine in 1946, quoting as follows: Mr. Foo is a mysterious Second World War product, gifted with bitter omniscience and sarcasm. Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that hacker usage actually sprang from FOO, Lam