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From: wgg@floyd.UUCP (Bill Graves)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: foo and bar (etc.)
Message-ID: <1946@floyd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Aug-83 14:09:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: floyd.1946
Posted: Wed Aug 31 14:09:04 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Sep-83 06:29:14 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, NJ
Lines: 21

Since this seems to have become a topic of discussion on the
net, I herewith repeat something I mailed to Arnold this morning.

'Foo' and Bar' come from 'fubar', which is an old WWII expression,
being an acronym for "----'ed up beyond all recognition"
Walt Kelly is, I believe, responsible for 'Baz' or 'Bazz' from the
old 'Pogo' strip.  A favorite expletive used by his characters
was 'Foobazz', with 'Fazzbazz' getting honorable mention.

More about 'foo' itself -- during the 1930's there was another
comic strip, featuring a bunch of firemen, and titled "Smokey
Stover".  It was kind of surrealistic, and the word "foo" was
a sort of repeating gag (!).   The two-wheeled car the fire
chief drove was a foo -- Little signs popped up on lawns
proclaiming "foo"  --  you get it.

As Smokey would have put it "Scramgravy ain't wavy".


Bill Graves floyd!wgg