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The meaning of "foo"

Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 1:42 pm
by neophyte
I was curious about the origins of the word foo/bar/foobar. So I looked it up on dictionary.com.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=foo

Very interesting.

Enjoy.

Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 3:39 pm
by Roja
Its got an amazing heritage. Its also used in math circles to denote an unknown value.

A friend when I was growing up used the term in a slang-like fashion, and it became the basis for a shell company he founded (foonet.net - no longer his), a gaming clan for his friends and I (foomafia.com), and more.

And to clarify, we used it linguistically for *anything*. Affirmations, verbs, nouns, insults, anything.

Foo is indeed one of the most versatile, odd, and widely known non-statically-defined language entities.

Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 4:16 pm
by neophyte
That's totally FOO!

8) :lol: 8)

Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 7:39 pm
by evilmonkey
I like the origin of foo/bar: FUBAR. Kinda says something....

The roots of Foobar

Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 7:45 pm
by mhakes
Is this a derivative of FUBAR? :wink:

Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 8:18 pm
by Ambush Commander