Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!patth From: patth@dasys1.UUCP (Patt Haring) Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards,news.misc,rec.games.trivia Subject: Re: History Message-ID: <1391@dasys1.UUCP> Date: Fri, 25-Sep-87 00:19:13 EDT Article-I.D.: dasys1.1391 Posted: Fri Sep 25 00:19:13 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 18:49:11 EDT References: <1266@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK> <1252@homxc.UUCP> <1583@killer.UUCP> Organization: The Big Electric Cat Lines: 114 Keywords: History, foo, bar Summary: How Foobar got into CS lingo Xref: mnetor comp.misc:1317 comp.unix.questions:4250 comp.unix.wizards:4479 news.misc:976 rec.games.trivia:854 In article <1583@killer.UUCP>, richardh@killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove) writes: > How fu (aka foo) and bar got into CS lingo is probably an unanswerable > question. It (or they) probably had multiple entry points. > > Actually, my favorites are farkle, snarf, and frazits. > > regards, > richard hargrove > ...!inhp4!killer!richardh > ------------------------- Richard, This is my understanding of how *FOOBAR* got into CS lingo (I have a copy of the old "Hacker's Dictionary" from MIT, et al): ----- "The Hacker's Dictionary" Notes on updating this file: This file is maintained at three locations. It is AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] at SAIL, and GLS;JARGON > at MIT-MC and at MIT-AI. If you make any changes, please FTP the new file to the other location. (NOTE: Use ASCII mode in FTP to avoid screwing up the tilde char!) It is also a good idea to compare this file against the copy on the other machine before FTP'ing and to merge any changes found there, in case someone else forgot to do the FTP. Also, please let us know (see list of names below) about your changes so that we can double-check them. Try to conform to the format already being used--70 character lines, 3-character indentations, pronunciations in parentheses, etymologies in brackets, single-space after def'n numbers and word classes, etc. Stick to the standard ASCII character set. If you'd rather not mung the file yourself, send your definitions to DON @ SAIL, GLS @ MIT-AI, and/or MRC @ SAIL. The last edit (of this line, anyway) was by Don Woods, 82-11-14. Compiled by Guy L. Steele Jr., Raphael Finkel, Donald Woods, Geoff Goodfellow and Mark Crispin, with assistance from the MIT and Stanford AI communities and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Some contributions were submitted via the ARPAnet from miscellaneous sites. Verb doubling: a standard construction is to double a verb and use it as a comment on what the implied subject does. Often used to terminate a conversation. Typical examples involve WIN, LOSE, HACK, FLAME, BARF, CHOMP: "The disk heads just crashed." "Lose, lose." "Mostly he just talked about his --- crock. Flame, flame." "Boy, what a bagbiter! Chomp, chomp!" Soundalike slang: similar to Cockney rhyming slang. Often made up on the spur of the moment. Standard examples: Boston Globe => Boston Glob Herald American => Horrid (Harried) American New York Times => New York Slime historical reasons => hysterical raisins government property - do not duplicate (seen on keys) => government duplicity - do not propagate Often the substitution will be made in such a way as to slip in a standard jargon word: Dr. Dobb's Journal => Dr. Frob's Journal creeping featurism => feeping creaturism Margaret Jacks Hall => Marginal Hacks Hall The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending the syllable "P"; from the LISP convention of appending the letter "P" to denote a predicate (a Boolean-values function). The question should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't. (See T and NIL.) At dinnertime: "Foodp?" "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!" "State-of-the-world-P?" (Straight) "I'm about to go home." (Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state." [One of the best of these is a Gosperism (i.e., due to Bill Gosper). When we were at a Chinese restaurant, he wanted to know whether someone would like to share with him a two-person-sized bowl of soup. His inquiry was: "Split-p soup?" --GLS] Peculiar nouns: MIT AI hackers love to take various words and add the wrong endings to them to make nouns and verbs, often by extending a standard rule to nonuniform cases. Examples: porous => porosity generous => generosity Ergo: mysterious => mysteriosity ferrous => ferocity Other examples: winnitude, disgustitude, hackification. Spoken inarticulations: Words such as "mumble", "sigh", and "groan" are spoken in places where their referent might more naturally be used. It has been suggested that this usage derives from the impossibility of representing such noises in a com link. Another expression sometimes heard is "complain!" FOO 1. [from Yiddish "feh" or the Anglo-Saxon "fooey!"] interj. Term of disgust. 2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition), from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used for temporary programs, or samples of three-letter names. Other similar words are BAR, BAZ (Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarely RAG. These have been used in Pogo as well. 3. Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything. The old `Smokey Stover' comic strips often included the word FOO, in particular on license plates of cars. MOBY FOO: See MOBY. -- Patt Haring UUCP: ..cmcl2!phri!dasys1!patth Big Electric Cat Compu$erve: 76566,2510 New York, NY, USA MCI Mail: 306-1255; GEnie: PHaring (212) 879-9031 FidoNet Mail: 1:107/132 or 107/222