"foo" origin

[Richard Stueven]

In article <576 at torch.co.uk> richard at torch.co.uk (Richard Nuttall) writes:
>jdw at hpfijdw.HP.COM (Jeff Wood) writes:
>
>
>>In my lengthy career in Computer Science at the University,
>>many professors used the acronym "foo".  None of which knew
>>its origins.  Examples of code were called "foo.c", functions
>>were called "int foo ()".  Do any of you gurus from way
>>back know what this stands for????
>
> [ ... ]
>Someone in Dec, some time ago wanted a name to use in an example in a document,
>but didn't want the swear word in there. To disguise this, the word FOO was
>used instead of FU.

In an old (late '30s) Daffy Duck cartoon, he parades around carrying
a sign that says "FOO!".  No explanation was given; this was in the
days when he was *really* daffy.


Richard Stueven                                  gak at sun.com

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