Newsgroup: it.comp.lang.c++
Titolo: foobar ?

Quando si tratta di fare un esempio, tutti i manuali in inglese che mi
siano capitati fra le mani usano la parola "foobar", un po' come in
italiano una generica variabile viene spesso indicata con "pippo".
Tipicamente si incontrano frasi del tipo "Una classe Foobar ha due
metodi, foo e bar". Ma cosa diavolo significa "foobar"? Il dubbio mi
assilla.
Ringrazio anticipatamente quanti eviteranno di rispondere che "foobar"
significa "pippo".
ciao
== Aldo Brucale =====================================

 significa "pippo".
"Fubar", parola comunemente usata nelle forze armate USA verso
il tempo della guerra di Corea, e` un acronimo per "Fucked Up
Beyond All Recognition" ("cosi` fottuto da essere irriconoscibile",
l'espressione "fucked up" qui tradotta come "fottuto" puo` valere
"incasinato", "rovinato da errori di qualcuno", ecc, ecc).
Il cambiamento dello spelling a "foobar" e` piu` recente, data
da verso la fine anni '50.
Altro termine di origine analoga che potrai trovare (questo col
significato di "piccolo problema o intoppo") e` "snafu", che sta
per "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up" (e questo usa ancora lo
spelling originale, stessa datazione).
Alex

 Beyond All Recognition"
Non e' facile beccare Alex in fallo, ma l'etimologia di "foo" e'
differente da quella di "fubar" (anche se le due storie si confondono).
Accludo la voce "foo" del jargon file ...
-- 
Maurizio Loreti                         
http://www.pd.infn.it/~loreti/mlo.html
Univ. of Padova, Dept. of Physics - Padova, Italy            
lor...@pd.infn.it
------------------------------------------------------------------------
:foo: /foo/  1. /interj./ Term of disgust.  2. 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 variable}s used in syntax examples.  See also
   {bar}, {baz}, {qux}, {quux}, {corge}, {grault},
   {garply}, {waldo}, {fred}, {plugh}, {xyzzy},
   {thud}.
   The etymology of hackish `foo' is obscure.  When used in
   connection with `bar' it is generally traced to the WWII-era Army
   slang acronym FUBAR (`Fucked Up Beyond All Repair'), later
   bowdlerized to {foobar}.  (See also {FUBAR}.)
   However, the use of the word `foo' itself has more complicated
   antecedents, including a long history in comic strips and cartoons.
   The old "Smokey Stover" comic strips by Bill Holman often
   included the word `FOO', in particular on license plates of cars;
   allegedly, `FOO' and `BAR' also occurred in Walt Kelly's
   "Pogo" strips.  In the 1938 cartoon "The Daffy Doc", a very
   early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying "SILENCE IS
   FOO!"; oddly, this seems to refer to some approving or positive
   affirmative use of foo.  It has been suggested that this might be
   related to 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").
   Paul Dickson's excellent book "Words" (Dell, 1982, ISBN
   0-440-52260-7) traces "Foo" to an unspecified British naval
   magazine in 1946, quoting as follows: "Mr. Foo is a mysterious
   Second World War product, gifted with bitter omniscience and
   sarcasm."
   Other sources confirm that `FOO' was a semi-legendary subject of
   WWII British-army graffiti more-or-less equivalent to the American
   Kilroy.  Where British troops went, the graffito "FOO was here"
   or something similar showed up.  Several slang dictionaries aver
   that FOO probably came from Forward Observation Officer.  In this
   connection, the later American military slang `foo fighters' is
   interesting; at least as far back as the 1950s, radar operators
   used it for the kind of mysterious or spurious trace that would
   later be called a UFO (the older term resurfaced in popular
   American usage in 1995 via the name of one of the better
   grunge-rock bands).
   Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that
   hacker usage actually sprang from "FOO, Lampoons and Parody",
   the title of a comic book first issued in September 1958, a joint
   project of Charles and Robert Crumb.  Though Robert Crumb (then in
   his mid-teens) later became one of the most important and
   influential artists in underground comics, this venture was hardly
   a success; indeed, the brothers later burned most of the existing
   copies in disgust.  The title FOO was featured in large letters on
   the front cover.  However, very few copies of this comic actually
   circulated, and students of Crumb's `oeuvre' have established
   that this title was a reference to the earlier Smokey Stover
   comics.
   An old-time member reports that in the 1959 "Dictionary of the
   TMRC Language", compiled at {TMRC}, there was an entry that went
   something like this:
     FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE
     PADME HUM."  Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters
     turning.
   For more about the legendary foo counters, see {TMRC}.  Almost
   the entire staff of what later became the MIT AI Lab was involved
   with TMRC, and probably picked the word up there.
   Very probably, hackish `foo' had no single origin and derives
   through all these channels from Yiddish `feh' and/or English
   `fooey'.

Accludo la voce "foo" del jargon file ...
Magnifico! Cos'è questo jargon file?
== Aldo Brucale =====================================

L'opera di Eric Raymond: 
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/
 .
Da non perdere per chiunque sia interessato alla storia ed al folklore
del computing.  Altra risorsa, appunto, alt.folklore.computing .
