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From: adchen@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Anthony Dunyeh Chen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: "foo" and other expressions
Message-ID: <7650@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 9 Apr 89 05:06:50 GMT
References: <669@occrsh.ATT.COM> <7999@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: adchen@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Distribution: usa
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 18

In article <7999@boulder.Colorado.EDU> fozzard@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Richard Fozzard) writes:
>In article <669@occrsh.ATT.COM> jdsb@occrsh.ATT.COM (John_Babcock) writes:
>>P.S. What is foo in foo.bat?
>
>My guess is that "foo", a common scratch name for things (files, etc.), esp.
>in LISP, comes from the military expression "foobar" or "fubar" - Fucked Up
>Beyond All Repair.

So long as we're on this subject, the most used abbreviation/acronym is
none other than: OK. 

I believe it originated from Andrew Jackson when someone asked him to
sign a document, so he wrote "OK", meaning "Ol Korrect".

(sorry if this is way beyond the normal comp.sys.mac topics...)

Tony Chen
adchen@phoenix.princeton.edu