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Re: FOO vs FO



>> Does anyone know why FOO was chosen to mean anything?

>FOO is from foobar, a military term
>cheers, jim fuller

<tirade>
No, it's not! If it were, why isn't it spelled "fu"?

"FOO" is from the Smokey Stover comic strip, where it was used as
an arbitrary word, just as we use it in Computer Science! The
Jargon Dictionary attempts to trace earlier uses, but Smokey
Stover still rules as the place where the modern usage was
introduced.

FUBAR came later, and from that we derived "bar" as a companion
to foo. In other words, "foo" and "bar" have separate derivations.
Let's kill the urban legend that "FUBAR begat FOO" because that
story is, um, fouled up.
</tirade>
.................David Marston


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