Foo

2 definitions found

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  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}, {corge}, {grault}, {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'),
     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
     (http://www.spumco.com/magazine/eowbcc/) 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 may have
     been the Chinese word `fu' (sometimes transliterated `foo'), which can
     mean "happiness" or "prosperity" when spoken with the proper 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, Lampoons and Parody", the title of a
     comic book first issued in September 1958, a joint project of Charles
     and Robert Crumb. Though Robert Crumb (then in his mid-teens) later
     became one of the most important and influential artists in underground
     comics, this venture was hardly a success; indeed, the brothers later
     burned most of the existing copies in disgust. The title FOO was
     featured in large letters on the front cover. However, very few copies
     of this comic actually circulated, and students of Crumb's `oeuvre' have
     established that this title was a reference to the earlier Smokey Stover
     comics. The Crumbs may also have been influenced by a short-lived
     Canadian parody magazine named `Foo' published in 1951-52.
  
     An old-time member reports that in the 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC
     Language", compiled at {TMRC}, there was an entry that went something
     like this:
  
    FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE PADME
    HUM."  Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters turning.
    
     (For more about the legendary foo counters, see {TMRC}.) This
     definition used Bill Holman's nonsense word, only then two decades old
     and demonstrably still live in popular culture and slang, to a {ha ha
     only serious} analogy with esoteric Tibetan Buddhism. Today's hackers
     would find it difficult to resist elaborating a joke like that, and it
     is not likely 1959's were any less susceptible. Almost the entire staff
     of what later became the MIT AI Lab was involved with TMRC, and the word
     spread from there.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  foo
       
           /foo/ A sample name for absolutely anything,
          especially programs and files (especially {scratch files}).
          First on the standard list of {metasyntactic variables} used
          in {syntax} examples.  See also {bar}, {baz}, {qux}, {quux},
          {corge}, {grault}, {garply}, {waldo}, {fred}, {plugh},
          {xyzzy}, {thud}.
       
          The etymology of "foo" is obscure.  When used in connection
          with "bar" it is generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang
          acronym {FUBAR}, later bowdlerised to {foobar}.
       
          However, the use of the word "foo" itself has more complicated
          antecedents, including a long history in comic strips and
          cartoons.
       
          "FOO" often appeared in the "Smokey Stover" comic strip by
          Bill Holman.  This surrealist strip about a fireman appeared
          in various American comics including "Everybody's" between
          about 1930 and 1952.  FOO was often included on licence plates
          of cars and in nonsense sayings in the background of some
          frames such as "He who foos last foos best" or "Many smoke but
          foo men chew".
       
          Allegedly, "FOO" and "BAR" also occurred in Walt Kelly's
          "Pogo" strips.  In the 1938 cartoon "The Daffy Doc", a very
          early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying "SILENCE IS
          FOO!".  Oddly, this seems to refer to some approving or
          positive affirmative use of foo.  It has been suggested that
          this might be related to the Chinese word "fu" (sometimes
          transliterated "foo"), which can mean "happiness" when spoken
          with the proper tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the
          steps of many Chinese restaurants are properly called "fu
          dogs").
       
          Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that
          hacker usage actually sprang from "FOO, Lampoons and Parody",
          the title of a comic book first issued in September 1958, a
          joint project of Charles and Robert Crumb.  Though Robert
          Crumb (then in his mid-teens) later became one of the most
          important and influential artists in underground comics, this
          venture was hardly a success; indeed, the brothers later
          burned most of the existing copies in disgust.  The title FOO
          was featured in large letters on the front cover.  However,
          very few copies of this comic actually circulated, and
          students of Crumb's "oeuvre" have established that this title
          was a reference to the earlier Smokey Stover comics.
       
          An old-time member reports that in the 1959 "Dictionary of the
          TMRC Language", compiled at {TMRC} there was an entry that
          went something like this:
       
          FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE
          PADME HUM."  Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters
          turning.
       
          For more about the legendary foo counters, see {TMRC}.  Almost
          the entire staff of what became the {MIT} {AI LAB} was
          involved with TMRC, and probably picked the word up there.
       
          Another correspondant cites the nautical construction
          "foo-foo" (or "poo-poo"), used to refer to something
          effeminate or some technical thing whose name has been
          forgotten, e.g. "foo-foo box", "foo-foo valve".  This was
          common on ships by the early nineteenth century.
       
          Very probably, hackish "foo" had no single origin and derives
          through all these channels from Yiddish "feh" and/or English
          "fooey".
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
          (1998-04-16)