Is the word "fubar" a Chinese curse?
Tomoyuki Tanaka
Nathanial kai-po <kail...@webtv.net> wrote:
>
> Anybody know if fubar is a Chinese curse? If it isn't I've
> heard of a Chinese curse that sounds almost identical to it.
>
i'm sure lots of Chinese words sound like "foo-bar".
the following Jargon file entry had some interesting tidbits,
like the German `furchtbar' (terrible) and some speculated
Chinese connection.
;;; http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/GEB/ "GEB" FAQ
--------------------------------------------------------------------
: http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/f/foo.html
foo
foo: /foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. [very common] Used very
generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and
files (esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of
metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples. See also bar, baz,
qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud.
When `foo' is used in connection with `bar' it has generally traced to
the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR (`Fucked Up Beyond All Repair'),
later modified to foobar. Early versions of the Jargon File
interpreted this change as a post-war bowdlerization, but it it now
seems more likely that FUBAR was itself a derivative of `foo' perhaps
influenced by German `furchtbar' (terrible) - `foobar' may actually
have been the _original_ form.
For, it seems, the word `foo' itself had an immediate prewar history
in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the
"Smokey Stover" comic strip popular in the 1930s, which frequently
included the word "foo". Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled
it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense
phrases such as "Notary Sojac" abd "1506 nix nix". According to the
Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion
(ttp://www.spumco.com/magazine/eowbcc/) Holman claimed to have found
the word "foo" on the bottom of a Chinese figurine. This is plausible;
Chinese statuettes often have apotropaic inscriptions, and this may
have been the Chinese word `fu' (sometimes transliterated `foo'),
which can mean "happiness" when spoken with the proper tone (the
lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese restaurants are
properly called "fu dogs"). English speakers' reception of Holman's
`foo' nonsense word was undoubtedly influenced by Yiddish `feh' and
English `fooey' and `fool'.
[...]
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
> D.R.Hofstadter: "alien" "inscrutable" "Oriental mind"
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>> in "Metamagical Themas" (1985) Hofstadter self-righteously
>> preached nonsexist language (word choices, etc) with
>> hypersensitivity.
>>
>> in "Le Ton beau de Marot" (1997) Hofstadter casually makes
>> fun of Asians with the phrases such as
>> "inscrutable" "the Oriental mind" and other outdated
>> (and inherently racist) stereotypes.
>>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
> from Douglas Hofstadter's book "Le Ton beau de Marot" (1997)
>
> "Could it be that the very idea of transculturation
> itself is a Western one, and strikes the Oriental mind
> as alien?" (Page 148)
>
> "By virtue of being overly Oriental, it would be
> extraordinarily disorienting!" (Page 149)
>
> have you read another book that's published in the last 20
> years or so that uses the words like "inscrutable" and "the
> Oriental mind" (or other racist stereotypes) to make fun of
> Asians?
>
> if so, could you let me know?
> i'm esp. interested in books by non-comedians.
>
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>> NYT's review article of Douglas Hofstadter's book "Le
>> Ton beau de Marot"
>> http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/970720.20altert.html
>> (Prof. Alter, using lenient language, points out
>> Hofstadter's superficial understanding of literature
>> and translation.)
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Tomlin
(Tomoyuki Tanaka) wrote:
> Nathanial kai-po <kail...@webtv.net> wrote:
> >
> > Anybody know if fubar is a Chinese curse? If it isn't I've
> > heard of a Chinese curse that sounds almost identical to it.
> >
>
> i'm sure lots of Chinese words sound like "foo-bar".
>
> the following Jargon file entry had some interesting tidbits,
> like the German `furchtbar' (terrible) and some speculated
> Chinese connection.
FWIW, T*n*k* is a well-known troll in the soc.culture.asian groups.
Edward Green
>Nathanial kai-po <kail...@webtv.net> wrote:
>>
>> Anybody know if fubar is a Chinese curse? If it isn't I've
>> heard of a Chinese curse that sounds almost identical to it.
Would you share this item with us, or is it too terrible?
> i'm sure lots of Chinese words sound like "foo-bar".
>
> the following Jargon file entry had some interesting tidbits,
> like the German `furchtbar' (terrible) and some speculated
> Chinese connection.
I hope those with limited bandwidth will forgive me for leaving the
entry intact. I had a discussion recently where my view was that
anybody knowing "FUBAR" as an acronym would instantly conceive as
"FUBU", which began appearing on clothing recently, as a cousin, and
begin back-fitting meanings for the ultimate U!
My point of view was not warmly received, but after reading a more
complete and nuanced history of "foo", "fu", and derivative and
cognate thingies, there is even more support for the idea that a
literate speaker is going to see FUBU as a vulgar acronym in need
of explication, as well as a funny word in its own right! It shows
lack of imagination to take the view that the manufacturer said
the meaning was "For Us, By Us" and that was an end to the thing.
Or maybe your reaction depended on whether "fubar" spoke to you as
a living word or as a cold historical footnote.
My chief protagonist was an Aussie, and cannot have been expected
to be sympathetic to U.S. Army slang. As army slang, the
cross-fertilization of "furchtbar" with the already prevalent American
"foo" to form "foobar", almost immediately modified to "fubar" for
greater ease of acronymitization seems plausible to me as another
result of the collision of German and U.S. Army culture in occupied
Germany which also gave us "machts nichts stix" (mail box like flags
showing whether a taxi was occupied), and not doubt many other
subtle and important results of which I am not aware. Can't you
just hear the same collective GI mind at work, seizing an overheard
and evidently pejorative German word, influenced by a current American
slang monosyllable, to form the basis for a vulgar acronym? Brilliant!
Even slang seems to be overdetermined in the collective unconscious...
though I suppose it should not be surprising, since every dialect
change to the language presumably starts as non-standard according
to some lexicon, and the ones that stick may be those which resonate
most strongly. Of course then there is "folk-etymology", or
linguistic numerology.
If there is also a Chinese curse which sounds almost like "fubar",
perhaps we have demonstrated that the sound is a genetically encoded
archetype of the collective unconscious, a proto-indo european root
traceable to some pre-linguistic cry of our simian ancestors.
[Now I have covered all the bases, so must be correct somewhere! :) ]
Edward Green
Bruce Tomlin <bto...@aol.com> wrote:
>FWIW, T*n*k* is a well-known troll in the soc.culture.asian groups.
Is that like J*w*h? Pretty strong stuff!
I don't know anything about the posting history of the individual in
question, and I'm not saying he is or is not a "troll", but the post I
replied to about "fubar" seemed fairly value neutral, though I would
not have cared to engage the opinions expressed in the signature.
I've also been accused of being a "troll" from time to time, and
while the word originally may have meant somebody deliberately
misrepresenting themselves in order to stir up trouble for their
own amusement I think it has devolved under some fingers to mean
"person with strong opinions unlike mine -- particularly if outside
the tenor of group regulars -- who seems unwilling to back down".
This happens to me more on groups on which I am an "outsider".
"Troll" is in the process of undergoing a standard linguistic shift,
like "racist", from a person demonstrating some definite behavior
patterns to someone whom we simply do not like and whom we wish
to tar with the general negative connotations of the word.
Again, I say this without any special knowledge of the posting habits
of said person, nor his general level of sincerity... I'm just
replying from alt.folklore.computers... hmm... where I see you have
limited this note to.
Ed Green
Bruce Tomlin
wrote:
> "Troll" is in the process of undergoing a standard linguistic shift,
> like "racist", from a person demonstrating some definite behavior
> patterns to someone whom we simply do not like and whom we wish
> to tar with the general negative connotations of the word.
Actually, I shouldn't have said he was a troll. That would imply that
he's intentionally screwing with people's minds and knows better. He's
more properly a kook, since he honestly believes all his nonsense. But
I was feeling nice at the moment and didn't want to call him a "kook".
Troll: person who plays with people's minds with mis-information
Troll-ee: person receptive to mis-information from a troll
Kook: person who has trolled himself with his own mis-information
Don Kirkman
<8srs52$5h2$1...@news.panix.com>:
[...]
You seem to be overthinking this to the point of nonsense. How many WW
II American GIs do you think ever heard of the German 'furchtbar' or of
any Chinese words with 'fu' as an element? Occam's razor serves us well
here, and, to quote from Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D., in his _American
Slang_, [ISBN 0-06-096160-0]: "fubar adj. fr WW2 armed forces Totally
botched and confused; = snafu (fr f***ked up beyond all recognition)".
(Snafu: Situation Normal All F**ked Up)
There are two and a half pages of entries for the root word and several
other acronyms in the same family. No need to search for the source in
Germany or China. Also, you missed the fact that the term was in use
*during* WW II, not just later during the occupation.
OTOH, 'machs nicht stix' is a phrase I've never heard, including during
my time in the service; if it really exists/ed it must be in a very
limited area. It's also curious that the German spelling would be
preserved for 'machs nicht' while 'sticks' is converted to the
Variety-style slang spelling 'stix.'
>Even slang seems to be overdetermined in the collective unconscious...
>though I suppose it should not be surprising, since every dialect
>change to the language presumably starts as non-standard according
>to some lexicon, and the ones that stick may be those which resonate
>most strongly. Of course then there is "folk-etymology", or
>linguistic numerology.
Or academic linguistics and etymology such as Chapman espouses.
>If there is also a Chinese curse which sounds almost like "fubar",
>perhaps we have demonstrated that the sound is a genetically encoded
>archetype of the collective unconscious, a proto-indo european root
>traceable to some pre-linguistic cry of our simian ancestors.
>[Now I have covered all the bases, so must be correct somewhere! :) ]
An end greatly to be desired. Not sure you made it. Part of your
problem, maybe, was getting entangled with Tanaka-san and Nathanial
Kai-Po. :-0
--
Don
Edward Green
>You seem to be overthinking this to the point of nonsense. How many WW
>II American GIs do you think ever heard of the German 'furchtbar'
Possibly quite a lot, actually. Germany, as you may recall, was
an occupied country after the war, and there has been a continuous
U.S. Military presence there since, gradually segueing from
"occupiers" to "defenders". You don't have to learn the language
to pick up a few key words, and while I cannot personally attest
to the idiomatic frequency of "furchtbar" as an ejaculation in
occupied Germany in the post war period, it is by no means far
fetched to think of U.S. GI's being influenced in their slang by
a word heard repeatedly on the street, with palpable negative
connotations.
I had the "machts nichts sticks" (or stix) from a college German
teacher... "machts nichts" being as you know a common phrase meaning
"it doesn't matter". So GI's, hearing "machts nichts" on the
street, not even necessarily grasping its meaning, combined it in
an alliterative nonsense phrase to describe part of a German taxi
cab. And I did _not_ make that one up. So why is "furchtbar"
bastardized to "foobar" implausible to your ear?
As for "fu", if you bothered to read the quoted jargon file you will
the the connection did _not_ require U.S. GI's to be familiar with the
Chinese word, but only noted fu's possible relevance to the apparence
of "foo" in stateside cartoon strips during the 30's. If you can
read "foo" in the funny papers and have "foo" somewhere in your
repository of popular culture, you bored transplanted GI you, it's
not implausible that you will hear "foo" in the first syllable of
"furchtbar", nor form your typically irreverent GI slang version
"foobar" in the spirit of the nonsense "machts nichts sticks", nor
is it implausible that some future wag will find a meaning for the
letters, with a slight modification or variation in spelling.
If this is "overthinking" then this is only relative to the importance
of the subject matter, not with regard to plausibility. I think it
is just "thinking". Bored GI's are influenced by _something_.
>or of
>any Chinese words with 'fu' as an element? Occam's razor serves us well
>here, and, to quote from Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D., in his _American
>Slang_, [ISBN 0-06-096160-0]: "fubar adj. fr WW2 armed forces Totally
>botched and confused; = snafu (fr f***ked up beyond all recognition)".
>(Snafu: Situation Normal All F**ked Up)
Thank you. I am familiar with the acronyms. Your discreetness does
you credit, but just in the spirit of open discourse, I think we may
write out "fuck", in case anybody was wondering. There, I wrote it.
>There are two and a half pages of entries for the root word and several
>other acronyms in the same family. No need to search for the source in
>Germany or China. Also, you missed the fact that the term was in use
>*during* WW II, not just later during the occupation.
Well, that would be a prehaps telling point; though there was
certainly a German speaking population in some parts of the U.S.
from which GI's came... like New York City. And since you apparently
have the reference to hand, what is the earliest citation of "the
root word", by which term I presume you dignify "fubar"?
Introducing another piece of evidence does not show that the
first hypothesis was deficient according to "Occam's Razor"... in
fact, in terms of "simplest" explanation, you have really not
presented any alternative other than to say that the phrase may
already have been in use. Like the panspermia hypothesis for the
origin of life on this planet, which is not ipso facto simpler than
the Oparin hypothesis, this simply is an alternative explanation
for the genesis of a phenomenon _in_a_particular_historical_period_.
It is always true that a subject phenomenon either came in to being
during some period or else it was already in existence at the
opening of that period, in which case the "genesis" in that epoch
was "continuity". Merely moving the origin of a phenomenon around
the time line has what to do with simplicity or Occam's razor?
In my experience invocations of "Occam's razor" seldom amount to
much... the invoker usually has some straw dog model of the opposition
adding "pink fairies" (in the canonical form), an utterly superfluous
addition to an otherwise satisfactory model. Well only a fool
would do that, and while there are fools in the world, if a non-fool
suggests an alternative usually the side on which "simplicity" lies
is a bit more subtle! If it were really that simple, only a fool...
>OTOH, 'machs nicht stix' is a phrase I've never heard, including during
>my time in the service; if it really exists/ed it must be in a very
>limited area. It's also curious that the German spelling would be
>preserved for 'machs nicht' while 'sticks' is converted to the
>Variety-style slang spelling 'stix.'
I have never seen the phrase written... it was passed on to
me by the aforesaid professor orally... and when you think of it, as
spoken slang it really does not matter how you spell it. I don't know
why I wrote it that way the first time. That was me. Ignore it.
>>Even slang seems to be overdetermined in the collective unconscious...
>>though I suppose it should not be surprising, since every dialect
>>change to the language presumably starts as non-standard according
>>to some lexicon, and the ones that stick may be those which resonate
>>most strongly. Of course then there is "folk-etymology", or
>>linguistic numerology.
>
>Or academic linguistics and etymology such as Chapman espouses.
But you haven't told me what Chapman's proposed etiology of the
acronym is. And I'd be interested to hear about the cognates...
I was only familiar with "fubar" and "snafu".
>>If there is also a Chinese curse which sounds almost like "fubar",
>>perhaps we have demonstrated that the sound is a genetically encoded
>>archetype of the collective unconscious, a proto-indo european root
>>traceable to some pre-linguistic cry of our simian ancestors.
>
>>[Now I have covered all the bases, so must be correct somewhere! :) ]
>
>An end greatly to be desired. Not sure you made it. Part of your
>problem, maybe, was getting entangled with Tanaka-san and Nathanial
>Kai-Po. :-0
I am not "entangled" with them, and I believe my thoughts stand
alone... unless the alleged "jargon file" entry was falsified, or
you simply discount it. I never in fact had any contact with these
posters before and only responded because my reaction to "FUBU"
left me interested in the origins of "fubar". My tone was
light-hearted, while yours is certainly more than vaguely insulting
and certainly somewhat gratuitously fault-finding? I glumly predict
that in another 2.5 posts, in the mean, productive dialogue will
go to zero. :(
Your point seems to be that the alleged "furchtbar" "foobar"
connection is wildly improbable, and while I don't know it to be
true, neither do I know it to be spurious, and I am a tad peeved
that your dismissal implies not merely disagreement but that I am
somehow one can short of a six-pack. If you are an academic
linguist, 'sokay. I won't hold it against you, just don't argue
by authority, please.
In other words, I may be wrong, and a pre-war citation of "foobar" or
"fubar" would certainly seem to eliminate the "occupied Germany as
hotbed of linguistic cross-breeding" etiology, unless we had repeated
independent evolution of the same trait, which does happen (think of
Newton and Leibnez). The world may have been ripe for over-determined
vulgar acronyms! I may be wrong, but please do me the grace of merely
citing the relevant evidence, not of additionally implying I am a foo.
I mean fool.
[By the way... I was not entirely jestful about "the collective
unconscious". This need not be mystical... there may be genetically
encoded reasons why certain sounds "sound" a certain way.]
jmfb...@aol.com
In article <8su3mk$414$1...@news.panix.com>,
e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
<snip>
>>or of
>>any Chinese words with 'fu' as an element? Occam's razor serves us well
>>here, and, to quote from Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D., in his _American
>>Slang_, [ISBN 0-06-096160-0]: "fubar adj. fr WW2 armed forces Totally
>>botched and confused; = snafu (fr f***ked up beyond all recognition)".
>>(Snafu: Situation Normal All F**ked Up)
>
>Thank you. I am familiar with the acronyms. Your discreetness does
>you credit, but just in the spirit of open discourse, I think we may
>write out "fuck", in case anybody was wondering.
Thank you, but I knew about that one. :-)
<snip>
>>An end greatly to be desired. Not sure you made it. Part of your
>>problem, maybe, was getting entangled with Tanaka-san and Nathanial
>>Kai-Po. :-0
>
>I am not "entangled" with them, and I believe my thoughts stand
>alone... unless the alleged "jargon file" entry was falsified, or
>you simply discount it. I never in fact had any contact with these
>posters before and only responded because my reaction to "FUBU"
>left me interested in the origins of "fubar". My tone was
>light-hearted, while yours is certainly more than vaguely insulting
>and certainly somewhat gratuitously fault-finding? I glumly predict
>that in another 2.5 posts, in the mean, productive dialogue will
>go to zero. :(
[emoticon wrenching the thread back to computers]
When I was in college and working at the computer center, a
prof from the mechanics side of a degree told me about "fubar"
and what it meant. It took a long time for him to voice that
f word. He kept trying to tell me it stood for fouled but
his lying indicator always popped up so kept after him until
he told me the truth.
He always called scratch files, FOO.BAR or FOOBAR.DAT when
a DAT extension was required by the inputter. I just
started the habit. The fact that I was misspelling fubar
caused him to tell me the story.
<snip 12-pack request>
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Nickel
also know Mandarin, I can say at least there is no curse close to fubar in
these three dialects. However, there are hundreds of dialects in China, I
can not say there will be none in those dialects.
"Edward Green" <e...@panix.com> ę°åÆ«ę¼éµä»¶
news:8srs52$5h2$1...@news.panix.com...
> Tomoyuki Tanaka <tan...@web1.calweb.com> wrote:
>
> >Nathanial kai-po <kail...@webtv.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Anybody know if fubar is a Chinese curse? If it isn't I've
> >> heard of a Chinese curse that sounds almost identical to it.
>
> Would you share this item with us, or is it too terrible?
>
> > i'm sure lots of Chinese words sound like "foo-bar".
> >
> > the following Jargon file entry had some interesting tidbits,
> > like the German `furchtbar' (terrible) and some speculated
> > Chinese connection.
>
> Even slang seems to be overdetermined in the collective unconscious...
> though I suppose it should not be surprising, since every dialect
> change to the language presumably starts as non-standard according
> to some lexicon, and the ones that stick may be those which resonate
> most strongly. Of course then there is "folk-etymology", or
> linguistic numerology.
>
> If there is also a Chinese curse which sounds almost like "fubar",
> perhaps we have demonstrated that the sound is a genetically encoded
> archetype of the collective unconscious, a proto-indo european root
> traceable to some pre-linguistic cry of our simian ancestors.
>
> [Now I have covered all the bases, so must be correct somewhere! :) ]
>
Don Kirkman
>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>You seem to be overthinking this to the point of nonsense. How many WW
>>II American GIs do you think ever heard of the German 'furchtbar'
>Possibly quite a lot, actually. Germany, as you may recall, was
>an occupied country after the war, and there has been a continuous
>U.S.
You apparently overlooked what I, following Chapman, wrote--that the
term was in use *during* WW II, when the GIs had little fraternization
with Germans.
>As for "fu", if you bothered to read the quoted jargon file you will
>the the connection did _not_ require U.S. GI's to be familiar with the
>Chinese word, but only noted fu's possible relevance to the apparence
>of "foo" in stateside cartoon strips during the 30's.
But if you had read the quoted jargon file carefully, you would have
seen 'foo' is tentatively traced to Yiddish 'fey' and 1920s and later US
'phooey/fooey,' not to anything Chinese or to anything post-WW II.
[Begin cite]
Foo
<jargon> /foo/ A sample name for absolutely anything, especially
programs and files (especially scratch files). First on the standard
list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples. See also bar,
baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud.
The etymology of "foo" is obscure. When used in connection with "bar"
it is generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR, later
bowdlerised to foobar. However, the use of the word "foo" itself has
more complicated antecedents, including a long history in comic strips
and cartoons. . . .
Very probably, hackish "foo" had no single origin and derives through
all these channels from Yiddish "feh" and/or English "fooey".
[Dictionary.com]
[End cite]
> If you can
>read "foo" in the funny papers and have "foo" somewhere in your
>repository of popular culture, you bored transplanted GI you, it's
>not implausible that you will hear "foo" in the first syllable of
>"furchtbar"
Again, you seem to be trying to place a WW II (1941-1945) phenomenon in
a post-WW II (1945-ff0 context.
>If this is "overthinking" then this is only relative to the importance
>of the subject matter, not with regard to plausibility. I think it
>is just "thinking". Bored GI's are influenced by _something_.
The GIs were not particularly bored 1941 - 1945. They had their hands
too full to do much chatting with Germans. That was not garrison duty.
>>There are two and a half pages of entries for the root word and several
>>other acronyms in the same family. No need to search for the source in
>>Germany or China. Also, you missed the fact that the term was in use
>>*during* WW II, not just later during the occupation.
>Well, that would be a prehaps telling point; though there was
>certainly a German speaking population in some parts of the U.S.
>from which GI's came... like New York City. And since you apparently
>have the reference to hand, what is the earliest citation of "the
>root word", by which term I presume you dignify "fubar"?
No, I mean 'fuck,' and as you well know it's centuries old, with its
etymology running back to Greece.
>Introducing another piece of evidence does not show that the
>first hypothesis was deficient according to "Occam's Razor"... in
>fact, in terms of "simplest" explanation, you have really not
>presented any alternative other than to say that the phrase may
>already have been in use.
No, I did *not* say "the phrase may already have been in use," I said
the phrase *was* in use during WW II.
> Merely moving the origin of a phenomenon around
>the time line has what to do with simplicity or Occam's razor?
Moving the time line, which nearly every authority supports, shows that
the phrase was in common use *before* the elements you want to introduce
- German and Chinese terms. That seems to undermine any causal
relationship.
>In my experience invocations of "Occam's razor" seldom amount to
>much
I'll go with several centuries of philosophical use of it rather than
with your experience.
>... the invoker usually has some straw dog model of the opposition
>adding "pink fairies" (in the canonical form), an utterly superfluous
>addition to an otherwise satisfactory model.
The 'pink fairies' here appear to be German and Chinese terms that don't
seem to have any evidence (even in the Jargon File) linking them to WW
II GI slang.
> Well only a fool would do that, and while there are fools in the world,
> if a non-fool suggests an alternative usually the side on which "simplicity" lies
>is a bit more subtle! If it were really that simple, only a fool...
He he.
>But you haven't told me what Chapman's proposed etiology of the
>acronym is.
Of course I have; I quoted him.
>>>If there is also a Chinese curse which sounds almost like "fubar",
>>>perhaps we have demonstrated that the sound is a genetically encoded
>>>archetype of the collective unconscious, a proto-indo european root
>>>traceable to some pre-linguistic cry of our simian ancestors.
That 'if' hasn't been established, to begin with--and if it is, it of
necessity must be in a Chinese dialect that is/was in common use in the
US, not the dialect of an isolated group in the mountains of China. And
arcane explanations of the development of language and the roots of
semantics have little to do with made up words and phrases in everyday
life.
>>>[Now I have covered all the bases, so must be correct somewhere! :) ]
>>An end greatly to be desired. Not sure you made it. Part of your
>>problem, maybe, was getting entangled with Tanaka-san and Nathanial
>>Kai-Po. :-0
>I am not "entangled" with them, and I believe my thoughts stand
>alone... unless the alleged "jargon file" entry was falsified, or
>you simply discount it. I never in fact had any contact with these
>posters before and only responded because my reaction to "FUBU"
>left me interested in the origins of "fubar". My tone was
>light-hearted, while yours is certainly more than vaguely insulting
>and certainly somewhat gratuitously fault-finding? I glumly predict
>that in another 2.5 posts, in the mean, productive dialogue will
>go to zero. :(
I'm loathe to accept anything written by Tanaka-san at face value, with
his track record of anti-Americanism and one-note bigoted posts that
even other Japanese posters disagree with.
I'm sorry if I missed the light-heartedness, but it reminded me more of
academic pomposity than of jocularity.
>Your point seems to be that the alleged "furchtbar" "foobar"
>connection is wildly improbable,
It not only seems to be, that IS my point.
> and while I don't know it to be
>true, neither do I know it to be spurious,
And yet you seem to be arguing strongly in favor of Chinese and
'furchbar' as though you were convinced, at least to the extent of
dismissing much better attested and seemingly more reasonable
explanations.
>and I am a tad peeved
>that your dismissal implies not merely disagreement but that I am
>somehow one can short of a six-pack.
It must be in the reading; it wasn't in the writing.
> If you are an academic linguist, 'sokay.
I'm not. I'm a very common-sense every day person who prefers to go
with common-sense conclusions that stand very well on their own feet
without outside elements. (I think that's Occam's razor.)
> I won't hold it against you, just don't argue by authority, please.
The only authority I referred to was lexicographers and the generally
received opinion of those in a position to know.
>In other words, I may be wrong, and a pre-war citation of "foobar" or
>"fubar" would certainly seem to eliminate the "occupied Germany as
>hotbed of linguistic cross-breeding" etiology,
It needn't be pre-war; mid-war is very well documented, and precedes the
occupation.
>unless we had repeated
>independent evolution of the same trait, which does happen (think of
>Newton and Leibnez). The world may have been ripe for over-determined
>vulgar acronyms! I may be wrong, but please do me the grace of merely
>citing the relevant evidence, not of additionally implying I am a foo.
>I mean fool.
You seem to be arguing traits, when the real issue in this thread is
acronyms and slang words and phrases. Do we need to trace the evolution
of traits to recognize and understand the meaning of "FWIW" or "keep on
truckin'"?
>[By the way... I was not entirely jestful about "the collective
>unconscious". This need not be mystical... there may be genetically
>encoded reasons why certain sounds "sound" a certain way.]
But certain sounds related to semantics and terminology, not to slang.
BTW, this is probably my final post in this thread.
[Appendix - From a brief on-line search on 'fubar']
fubar
WWII military slang, come into general usage by many who are unaware
of its etymology: acronym of F_ _ _ed Up Beyond All Recognition. Cf.
foobar. I attended a psychology seminar around 1981 in which the
speaker discussed the ``fubar effect'' -- her awkward term for irony. I
hope many people had a chance to have a laugh at her expense before
anyone clued her. Ideally, I would hope she was clued but persisted
stubbornly.
[Stammtisch Beau Fleuve Acronyms]
fubar
Phrs. An acronym meaningĀ fucked up beyond all recognition.
[English slang and colloquialisms used in the United Kingdom ]
Definition for: FUBAR (Chat Expression)
Fouled Up Beyond All Repair.
[CI Computer -includes definition (English) ]
FUBAR
1. (WWII military slang) Fucked up beyond all
recognition (or repair).
See foobar.
[Free On-line Dictionary of Computing]
Acronym for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition (or other less polite
forms) by a person giving a commentary on a project or the world in
general. Often misspelled FOOBAR by people who don't understand it's
source.
[Glossary of Internet Terms]
FUBAR
Failed UniBus Address Register [DEC Engineering]
Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition [US military, WWII]
FUBARD (past tense of) FUBAR
[Acronym And Abbreviation List]
Acronym Definition
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Repair
FUBAR Failed UniBus Address Register (DEC VAX computer)
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Reality
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Reason
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Recall
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Recovery
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Relief
FUBAR Fouled Up Beyond All Restitution
FUBAR Fouled Up But All Right
FUBAR Fouled Up But Always Running (Team FUBAR, Auto Racing)
[Acronym Finder]
[End of Appendix]
--
Don
Edward Green
>[emoticon wrenching the thread back to computers]
>
>When I was in college and working at the computer center, a
>prof from the mechanics side of a degree told me about "fubar"
>and what it meant. It took a long time for him to voice that
>f word. He kept trying to tell me it stood for fouled but
>his lying indicator always popped up so kept after him until
>he told me the truth.
>
>He always called scratch files, FOO.BAR or FOOBAR.DAT when
>a DAT extension was required by the inputter. I just
>started the habit. The fact that I was misspelling fubar
>caused him to tell me the story.
Wait a second... which was the "misspelling" according to him? Fubar,
or foobar? See first posts in thread, if you can stand it.
Edward Green
>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
><8su3mk$414$1...@news.panix.com>:
>
>>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>>>You seem to be overthinking this to the point of nonsense. How many WW
>>>II American GIs do you think ever heard of the German 'furchtbar'
>
>>Possibly quite a lot, actually. Germany, as you may recall, was
>>an occupied country after the war, and there has been a continuous
>>U.S.
>
>You apparently overlooked what I, following Chapman, wrote--that the
>term was in use *during* WW II, when the GIs had little fraternization
>with Germans.
No, actually I didn't -- but if I can reply to your post sequentially,
without reading all the way to the end first before thinking, I guess
you can do the same, and I cannot complain! ;)
>>As for "fu", if you bothered to read the quoted jargon file you will
>>the the connection did _not_ require U.S. GI's to be familiar with the
>>Chinese word, but only noted fu's possible relevance to the apparence
>>of "foo" in stateside cartoon strips during the 30's.
>
>But if you had read the quoted jargon file carefully, you would have
>seen 'foo' is tentatively traced to Yiddish 'fey' and 1920s and later US
>'phooey/fooey,' not to anything Chinese or to anything post-WW II.
First, I read what was quoted by the prior poster. What I read
mentioned a possible connection to "feh", but also to "fu", in the
person of a certain cartoonist active before WWII, who claimed to have
found the word on the bottom of a Chinese vase. There seems to be a
possible inconsistency of transliteration; I will have to get back to
you on that one.
Second, I was replying (god, this is reaching 2nd order semantics,
whatever TF that is, but recall the 2.5 post asymptote) to your
aspersion that I had some ridiculous theory which required American
GI's to know some Chinese (which is not all that ridiculous, since
there were US soldiers operating in that theater, particularly
airmen), to which I replied that no, the tentative etiology did _not_
require this factor, only suggested it on the part of a certain
cartoonist. So your follow on paragraph is off-point; except of
course to question my reading ability.
By it's own admission the jargon file is something of a work in
progress, saying that an earlier version had suggested "foobar" was a
post-war bastardization of "fubar", but going on to suggest that
pre-war use of "foo" may have meant the original spelling was "foobar".
And speaking of Yiddish (get ready for a really crushing rejoinder
here ;), if we are going to relate "foo" to Yiddish "feh", then
perhaps we should recall that Yiddish is essential a medieval dialect
of German, and so a relation of "foobar" to the German "furchtbar", or
some Yiddish cognate I am not familiar with, suddenly seems very
plausible, doesn't it!
AHA, SEE HOW I HAVE (capitals taken as read) cleverly hoist Don
Kirkman by his own petard, using his advertised congenital origin
of "foo" and "feh" to demolish his allegation that a further relation
between "foobar" and "furchtbar" is overthought nonsense! (x 10)
[Brushes off lapel]
I don't really care, but in you effort to prove me an over-thinking and
sloppy reading idiot you may want to be careful the left hand does not
vitiate what the right hand is doing?
[Begin cite]
<...>
>[Dictionary.com]
>[End cite]
Ok. Now let's read the jargon file _I_ read, which was quoted by
Tanaka! Since he has been the target of discreditation, I didn't take
his word for it, but went to the source:
<http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/f/foo.html>
" ...it seems, the word `foo' itself had an immediate prewar history
in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the
"Smokey Stover" comic strip popular in the 1930s, which frequently
included the word "foo". Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled
it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense
phrases such as "Notary Sojac" abd "1506 nix nix". According to the
Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion
(ttp://www.spumco.com/magazine/eowbcc/) Holman claimed to have found
the word "foo" on the bottom of a Chinese figurine. This is plausible;
Chinese statuettes often have apotropaic inscriptions, and this may
have been the Chinese word `fu' (sometimes transliterated `foo'),
which can mean "happiness" when spoken with the proper tone (the
lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese restaurants are
properly called "fu dogs"). English speakers' reception of Holman's
`foo' nonsense word was undoubtedly influenced by Yiddish `feh' and
English `fooey' and `fool'."
Well, there we have your information, plus something extra, as
accurately quoted by Tanaka. So your repeated accusations of sloppy
reading appear a little shaky. You may want to check out the
material a person is responding to before posting.
>> If you can
>>read "foo" in the funny papers and have "foo" somewhere in your
>>repository of popular culture, you bored transplanted GI you, it's
>>not implausible that you will hear "foo" in the first syllable of
>>"furchtbar"
>
>Again, you seem to be trying to place a WW II (1941-1945) phenomenon in
>a post-WW II (1945-ff0 context.
Look... this is your one solid point. I offered a tentative hypothesis
or an immediate post-war genesis of "foobar" or "fubar". You say you
have earlier citations. That is a constructive contribution. Not
content with that, you want for some reason to to label me as "over thinking
to the point of the ridiculous", or words to that effect, and a sloppy
reader, and you keep twisting out from under my rebuttals to
perpetuate these heinous :) claims. If you are in possession of some
piece of information relevant to my post but seemingly unknown to me,
then let me know it, by all means. But if you want to play the latter
game, I suggest you choose your cases and your targets with great care.
<...>
>>Well, that would be a prehaps telling point; though there was
>>certainly a German speaking population in some parts of the U.S.
>>from which GI's came... like New York City. And since you apparently
>>have the reference to hand, what is the earliest citation of "the
>>root word", by which term I presume you dignify "fubar"?
>
>No, I mean 'fuck,' and as you well know it's centuries old, with its
>etymology running back to Greece.
Coyness can lead to legitimate misunderstanding.
>>Introducing another piece of evidence does not show that the
>>first hypothesis was deficient according to "Occam's Razor"... in
>>fact, in terms of "simplest" explanation, you have really not
>>presented any alternative other than to say that the phrase may
>>already have been in use.
>
>No, I did *not* say "the phrase may already have been in use," I said
>the phrase *was* in use during WW II.
Which quibble on words is relevant to my refutation of your "Occam's
razor" argument how? The point was, there is not apparently an
inherent gain in simplicity by simply saying that the "origin" of
a thing in a given interval simply amounts to continuity, a boundary
condition, at the beginning of the interval, rather than a discrete
point of origin within the interval, so I do not think your invocation
of Occam's razor is justified.
You can't rebut every argument by simply searching backwards in the
text until you find something you feel you can negate. Some
continuity and context is required. The opposite behavior is a trait
of the Dionysian, who likes to argue. I like to argue also, but I
like to argue with greater logical continuity.
>> Merely moving the origin of a phenomenon around
>>the time line has what to do with simplicity or Occam's razor?
>
>Moving the time line, which nearly every authority supports, shows that
>the phrase was in common use *before* the elements you want to introduce
>- German and Chinese terms. That seems to undermine any causal
>relationship.
You don't understand my point here, it seems.
>>In my experience invocations of "Occam's razor" seldom amount to
>>much
>
>I'll go with several centuries of philosophical use of it rather than
>with your experience.
And you cannot really rescue yourself with petty insults.
Sorry, that's about enough of this or me. You can declare victory
and move on, if you like, because I don't with to play the "I must
refute your every endless accusation of idiocy separately" game. The
clock of the bulletin of the semantic scientists is ticking, and now
shows less than one post before twelve.
Tanaka and that other fellow were dismissed as "trolls" or individuals
I would not want to be "entangled" with, but you are the one I see
coupling a polite interchange to which you had one relevant point to
contribute, about chronology, with pointless implications of idiocy
and naivety. Your behavior is that which looks to be to be a tad
trollish and pointlessly argumentative, without real attention to the
substance of the exchange, trivial as it may be.
D.J.
e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
[]in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the
[]"Smokey Stover" comic strip popular in the 1930s, which frequently
[]included the word "foo". Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled
This comic strip still existed in the 1950s and still used 'foo'. I
read it back then, first hand.
I say first hand so no one tries to claim FoaF crapola. Not that
anyone on usenet would try such a thing... :-)
JimP.
--
djim55 at tyhe datasync dot com. Disclaimer: Standard.
My Web pages Updated: October 5, 2000:
http://www.datasync.com/~djim55/
Registered Linux user#185746
Edward Green
> e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>[]in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the
>[]"Smokey Stover" comic strip popular in the 1930s, which frequently
>[]included the word "foo". Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled
>
>This comic strip still existed in the 1950s and still used 'foo'. I
>read it back then, first hand.
>
>I say first hand so no one tries to claim FoaF crapola. Not that
>anyone on usenet would try such a thing... :-)
<http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/f/foaf.html>
FOAF: // n. [Usenet; common] Acronym for `Friend Of A Friend'. The
source of an unverified, possibly untrue story. This term was not
originated by hackers (it is used in Jan Brunvand's books on urban
folklore), but is much better recognized on Usenet and elsewhere than
in mainstream English.
Hey! These jargon file things really work! I'm bookmarking that
sucka. :)
jmfb...@aol.com
Oh, I stood it. Foobar was the misspelling in the story.
I always supposed that the expansion for FU to FOO was
for sorting and left-justifying purposes since the filename
standard was 6.3 and a nice columnar directory listing
was nice to have. I think getting a good looking
DIRECTory depended on tabs being set for every 8 spaces.
I don't remember; it was in 1969 after all. _But_ this
was my hypothesis to explain the difference.
I also used BAZ a lot to name scratch files. For some
reason, DEC's standard file naming conventions didn't
use Z very much.
jmfb...@aol.com
In article <4ud6vsspt0o0aenmk...@4ax.com>,
Don Kirkman <new...@abac.com> wrote:
>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
><8su3mk$414$1...@news.panix.com>:
>
>>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
<snip>
>fubar
>Phrs. An acronym meaningĀ fucked up beyond all recognition.
>[English slang and colloquialisms used in the United Kingdom ]
>
>Definition for: FUBAR (Chat Expression)
>Fouled Up Beyond All Repair.
>[CI Computer -includes definition (English) ]
>
>FUBAR
>1. (WWII military slang) Fucked up beyond all
>recognition (or repair).
>See foobar.
>[Free On-line Dictionary of Computing]
>
>Acronym for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition (or other less polite
>forms) by a person giving a commentary on a project or the world in
>general. Often misspelled FOOBAR by people who don't understand it's
>source.
<snip>
I understood its source. I used the word FOOBAR for a
scratch filename because it was _six characters_. And
the reason I used FOOBAR is because I knew it would be
nobody else's filename default. That's real useful when
developing, testing, debugging, place holding, etc.
Thus, I do not agree with the comment in this entry.
Edward Green
>[societies pared down]
>
> Don Kirkman <new...@abac.com> wrote:
>>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
>><8su3mk$414$1...@news.panix.com>:
>>
>>>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
<...>
>>[Free On-line Dictionary of Computing]
>>
>>Acronym for Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition (or other less polite
>>forms) by a person giving a commentary on a project or the world in
>>general. Often misspelled FOOBAR by people who don't understand it's
>>source.
><snip>
>
>I understood its source. I used the word FOOBAR for a
>scratch filename because it was _six characters_. And
>the reason I used FOOBAR is because I knew it would be
>nobody else's filename default. That's real useful when
>developing, testing, debugging, place holding, etc.
>
>Thus, I do not agree with the comment in this entry.
Also, it appears that not all jargon scholars agree with this entry,
since if you slog back through the quotes you would see that the
jargon file 4.2.0 of 1/31/00 found at
http://www.science.uva.nl/~mes/jargon/t/top.html suggests this
misspelling theory may be the folk etymology here, and "foobar" the
original (non-acronym) form, modified to "fubar" later by
back-acronymitization.
It seems plausible that the ordinary forces of slang development
first created a word "foobar", with whatever alternative spelling, and
some comedian later added the acronym, rather than some brilliant
individual simultaneously created word, sound and acronym out of
nothing. Example: "FORD" -- fix or repair daily... of course there
is "AFNAG" -- another f**** naval academy graduate, not otherwise a
word AFAIK, though probably influenced by the JAG (judge advocate
general) core, as an officer specialty. And the navy is a culture of
acronyms and abbreviations.
A comment at this point "why don't you take this discussion off a.f.c.
and onto some more appropriate forum" would not be considered rude at
this point, provided some more appropriate forum were simultaneously
suggested. :) Unless there are some good funny computer oriented reverse
acronymitizations or re-acronymitizations?
I was pleased to see by the way that under "acronym" the three
examples offered by the online Merriam Webster Dictionary
<www.m-w.com> were "NATO", "radar" and "snafu"!
I heard it from a foaf.
Jynx
>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
>
>[...]
>
>>...... for
>>greater ease of acronymitization seems plausible to me as another
>>result of the collision of German and U.S. Army culture in occupied
>>Germany which also gave us "machts nichts stix" (mail box like flags
>>showing whether a taxi was occupied), and not doubt many other
>>subtle and important results of which I am not aware.
We (those of us stationed in Germany during the 50's and 60's
referred to the mechanical turn signals of the older model VW's as
"MOX NIX STIX" (machts nichts sticks). These were mechanical
operated, lighted 'wands' that flipped out and up from the
top of the pillar between the driver/passenger door and the
back-side window.
They were most probably labelled such due to their propensity
to not work - or not work well - _if_ put in use by the driver --
and, oftentimes, they remained stuck up in the 'active' position.
Jonesy
Bremerhaven 1952-1955
Ramstein 1961-1966
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | OS/2
Gunnison, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | linux __
7,703' -- 2,345m | frontier.net | DM68mn SK
Don Kirkman
>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
>><8su3mk$414$1...@news.panix.com>:
[...]
>>You apparently overlooked what I, following Chapman, wrote--that the
>>term was in use *during* WW II, when the GIs had little fraternization
>>with Germans.
>No, actually I didn't -- but if I can reply to your post sequentially,
>without reading all the way to the end first before thinking, I guess
>you can do the same, and I cannot complain! ;)
You're welcome to reply sequentially, but I don't decide whether or not
to reply to a post until after I've read it.
>>But if you had read the quoted jargon file carefully, you would have
>>seen 'foo' is tentatively traced to Yiddish 'fey' and 1920s and later US
>First, I read what was quoted by the prior poster. What I read
>mentioned a possible connection to "feh", but also to "fu", in the
>person of a certain cartoonist active before WWII, who claimed to have
>found the word on the bottom of a Chinese vase. There seems to be a
>possible inconsistency of transliteration; I will have to get back to
>you on that one.
Holman used 'foo,' not 'fu.' Another of Smokey Stover's much-loved
phrases was 'Nov schmoz kapop?'. Now, we know that 'nov-' is a Latin
root for 'new,' 'schmoz' may have come from 'schnoz' [Jimmy Durante,
'The Schnoz'], and 'kapop' may be a veiled reference to soda pop, pop
corn, or 'Pop Goes The Weasel," so it might mean "has someone newly
been popped in the schnoz?".
I shall continue in my unlettered conclusion that it's nonsense that
Bill Holman invented for his own reasons--and he was a master of the
genre. I suspect his tale of finding 'foo' on a Chinese vase falls into
the same category. :-)
Notary sojac, another of Holman's common phrases, is left as an exercise
for the student, as are the innumerable puns within the panels of the
strip.
--
Don
jmfb...@aol.com
e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
<snip>
>A comment at this point "why don't you take this discussion off a.f.c.
>and onto some more appropriate forum" would not be considered rude at
>this point, provided some more appropriate forum were simultaneously
>suggested. :) Unless there are some good funny computer oriented reverse
>acronymitizations or re-acronymitizations?
The fact that I used FOOBAR and FOO.BAZ in 1969 makes it
appropriate for this newsgroup :-).
<snip>
Edward Green
>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
><8t001a$g8p$1...@news.panix.com>:
>
>>Don Kirkman <anew...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
>>>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
>>><8su3mk$414$1...@news.panix.com>:
>
>[...]
>
>>>You apparently overlooked what I, following Chapman, wrote--that the
>>>term was in use *during* WW II, when the GIs had little fraternization
>>>with Germans.
>
>>No, actually I didn't -- but if I can reply to your post sequentially,
>>without reading all the way to the end first before thinking, I guess
>>you can do the same, and I cannot complain! ;)
>
>You're welcome to reply sequentially, but I don't decide whether or not
>to reply to a post until after I've read it.
In other words, I was not going to set a double standard but if
you are going to buy into one, then you failed your own standard
here, because I did not overlook whatever it was I am supposed to
have overlooked, you rather mentioned it later in the post and I
responded to it there; which means that by your own standards you
should have been aware of my belated response before you typed
your "overlooked". I said, self-deprecatingly, that I do the same
thing, but you say you don't do what I say you did the same thing
with respect to, but you did. Have it your way... you do, but you
didn't, so you goofed.
>>>But if you had read the quoted jargon file carefully, you would have
>>>seen 'foo' is tentatively traced to Yiddish 'fey' and 1920s and later US
>
>>First, I read what was quoted by the prior poster. What I read
>>mentioned a possible connection to "feh", but also to "fu", in the
>>person of a certain cartoonist active before WWII, who claimed to have
>>found the word on the bottom of a Chinese vase. There seems to be a
>>possible inconsistency of transliteration; I will have to get back to
>>you on that one.
>
>Holman used 'foo,' not 'fu.'
You are _still_ not reading what I quoted, and what I requoted for
your convenience. The quoted material was cognizant of the two
spellings, so bringing it forward as a revelation at this point
shows a lack of attention and engagement.
>Another of Smokey Stover's much-loved
>phrases was 'Nov schmoz kapop?'. Now, we know that 'nov-' is a Latin
>root for 'new,' 'schmoz' may have come from 'schnoz' [Jimmy Durante,
>'The Schnoz'], and 'kapop' may be a veiled reference to soda pop, pop
>corn, or 'Pop Goes The Weasel," so it might mean "has someone newly
>been popped in the schnoz?".
Or the last word may have reference to "kaput", meaning either "head"
or "finished".
>I shall continue in my unlettered conclusion that it's nonsense that
>Bill Holman invented for his own reasons--and he was a master of the
>genre. I suspect his tale of finding 'foo' on a Chinese vase falls into
>the same category. :-)
Could be. Unfortunately the unconscious may be stronger than we are,
and it is almost impossible to invent complete nonsense just as it is
almost impossible to write down a "random" sequence of digits. We are
not wired that way. Our brain is a huge association engine, and when
we release the governors and let it form its own associations there
is just no telling what will emerge. Which on the other hand does not
mean every dream analysis is correct or meaningful, since they also
contain the associations of the analyst...
Now overdetermination aside -- the idea that ideas which resonate
with us have several contributing chains of association -- my original
mild action was to concur with the jargon file that "furchtbar" to
"foobar" seemed a reasonable move, one I cannot take credit for but
which you....
Ok. Enough. Let's move on and declare victory! Hooray! Nov schmoz
kapop! And speaking of Bill Holmanesque nonsense, I notice that
another one of his nonsense phrases -- "1506 nix nix" -- sounds
suspiciously like that bit of rhyming slang I mentioned, "machs nix
stix" (not to mention "nix hix pix"). So maybe quite a bit of GI slang
can trace its roots in part to the genius of Bill Holman. Bill
Holman, Bill Holman, Bill Holman... I think you for pounding his name
into my skull, my world is richer for it.
Don Kirkman
<slrn8v95...@animas.frontier.net>:
>On Sat, 21 Oct 2000 16:07:01 -0700, Don Kirkman scribbled:
>>It seems to me I heard somewhere that Edward Green wrote in article
>><8srs52$5h2$1...@news.panix.com>:
>>[...]
>>>greater ease of acronymitization seems plausible to me as another
>>>result of the collision of German and U.S. Army culture in occupied
>>>Germany which also gave us "machts nichts stix" (mail box like flags
>>>showing whether a taxi was occupied), and not doubt many other
>>>subtle and important results of which I am not aware.
>We (those of us stationed in Germany during the 50's and 60's
>referred to the mechanical turn signals of the older model VW's as
>"MOX NIX STIX" (machts nichts sticks). These were mechanical
>operated, lighted 'wands' that flipped out and up from the
>top of the pillar between the driver/passenger door and the
>back-side window.
>They were most probably labelled such due to their propensity
>to not work - or not work well - _if_ put in use by the driver --
>and, oftentimes, they remained stuck up in the 'active' position.
Thanks for that info. I remember those little wig-wags on the early
Volks in the US. My military service was half a world away from
Germany; no wonder I never heard the phrase <g> (and my service was
probably before the VWs began rolling off the post-war production lines
in meaningful numbers).
--
Don
Maurice Fox
> >Germany which also gave us "machts nichts stix" (mail box like flags
> >showing whether a taxi was occupied), and not doubt many other
> >subtle and important results of which I am not aware. Can't you
> >just hear the same collective GI mind at work, seizing an overheard
No collective archetypes, please, but as one who was stationed in the
U. S. Army in Germany from 1960 to 1963, I can confirm that the term
"mox nix sticks" (note (mis-)spellings) was in common use as slang for
turn signals on cars. Also, the well understood etymology for "fubar"
was from the "snafu" line, not anything Oriental.
Maurice
John Savard
Tanaka) wrote, in part:
>Nathanial kai-po <kail...@webtv.net> wrote:
>> Anybody know if fubar is a Chinese curse? If it isn't I've
>> heard of a Chinese curse that sounds almost identical to it.
> i'm sure lots of Chinese words sound like "foo-bar".
> the following Jargon file entry had some interesting tidbits,
> like the German `furchtbar' (terrible) and some speculated
> Chinese connection.
Just as snafu is Situation Normal, All (fouled) Up, fubar is (fouled)
Up Beyond All Recognition; the slang is of U.S. military origin.
John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto.htm
jmfb...@aol.com
Kelvin Mok
>>> Anybody know if fubar is a Chinese curse? If it isn't I've
>>> heard of a Chinese curse that sounds almost identical to it.
>
>> i'm sure lots of Chinese words sound like "foo-bar".
>
>> the following Jargon file entry had some interesting tidbits,
>> like the German `furchtbar' (terrible) and some speculated
>> Chinese connection.
>
"Foo-boh" or something like the above versions (spellings of them).
The context then was "drat" or "dang" when I goofed at a game move or
when flubbing something simlar to "what a bonehead I am."
I can't say for sure but I cannot recall associating any negative
feelings or intent with that cuss then or now.
Maurice Fox
>
> Nitpik: Fouled?
>
> /BAH
>
> Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Well, not exactly fouled. This is a family newgroup, right?
Maurice
jmfb...@aol.com
>>
>> /BAH
>>
>> Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Only the PC part.