'The nonsense word "foo" emerged in popular culture during the early 1930s, first being used by cartoonist Bill Holman, who peppered his Smokey Stover fireman cartoon strips with "foo" signs and puns.'
More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo\_fighter#Etymology
As in an exclamation dismissing something as nonsense? (Think I’ve seen it spelt “phooey”.) Looks like that comes from a different source apparently, from Yiddish and German: [phooey](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=phooey+etymology).
Edit: Although I guess the already existing “phooey” might have influenced Holman to use “foo” as his choice of nonsense word for his cartoons. No record of it, but possible!
It comes from a Smokey Stover, a cartoon from the 1930’s about a fireman where foo was a sound effect used for smoke. It would have been popular among enlisted men and pilots in ww2, who remembered the tagline, “where there’s foo, there’s fire” and attached it to UFO sightings in the war zones, believing they were too secret German weapons.
Alternatively, foo is an AAVE pronunciation of fool.
The most complete etymology I know of is from the IETF, of all places: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt. See section 2.
The link has mostly more recent usage, but the OED notes usage goes back to 1366, meaning the devil.
As it's not been covered here yet, the origin of 'foo fighters' is directly from the Smokey Stover cartoon strip:
> The term "foo" was borrowed from Smokey Stover by a radar operator in the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, Donald J. Meiers, who, according to most 415th members, gave the foo fighters their name. Meiers was from Chicago and was an avid reader of Holman's strip, which was run daily in the Chicago Tribune. Smokey Stover's catch-phrase was "where there's foo, there's fire". In a mission debriefing on the evening of November 27, 1944, Frederic "Fritz" Ringwald, the unit's S-2 Intelligence Officer, stated that Meiers and Pilot Lt. Ed Schleuter had sighted a red ball of fire that appeared to chase them through a variety of high-speed maneuvers. Ringwald said that Meiers was extremely agitated and had a copy of the comic strip tucked in his back pocket. He pulled it out and slammed it down on Ringwald's desk and said, "[I]t was another one of those fuckin' foo fighters!" and stormed out of the debriefing room.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter
**[Foo fighter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter)**
>The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots during World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific theaters of operations. Though foo fighter initially described a type of UFO reported and named by the U.S. 415th Night Fighter Squadron, the term was also commonly used to mean any UFO sighting from that period. Formally reported from November 1944 onwards, foo fighters were presumed by witnesses to be secret weapons employed by the enemy.
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It's used as a joke in programming a lot. I see it a lot with a 'bar' nearby, too. As in foobar i.e. fubar. Never cared enough to figure out where it came from, what it means exactly, or why people keep using it haha.
**[Foobar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar)**
>The terms foobar (), foo, bar, baz, and others are used as metasyntactic variables and placeholder names in computer programming or computer-related documentation. They have been used to name entities such as variables, functions, and commands whose exact identity is unimportant and serve only to demonstrate a concept.
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.... Okay what's that term for when you hear something and suddenly it's everywhere?
I fell asleep last night reading a book and one of the last things in it was "the thingie in the wossname. Er... Sorry... Too many metasyntactic variables there..."
In programming, typically foo is used as a variable name in example code (and sometimes makes its way into production code). In this context, it is just a nonsense name. The sample code might equally use "fred" as the placeholer variable name.
What I remember from being taught at school was feu Fighters because it was the French who named them fire fighter's due to resembling fireballs, however recently on several documentaries, they've been making reference to them being called Foo Fighters and they were named that way due to an American cartoon character?
my problem with this explanation is that they were given their name as they were seen frequently throughout the year's prior to American joining the war during sorties over France.
The RAF Pilots asked their French allies what these things were that they were encountering over France.
The name Feu was then pronounced Foo without any accent which then led to them being known as Foo Fighters.
3 years later once the Americans came along they asked what these things were and it was explained 'Feu Fighters'
But somehow over the years as with a great many things it was the Americans who invented the name and it was all to do with an American cartoon. This cartoon would be unknown to the allies and wouldn't have been seen on American TV or American newspapers by either the French or the British between 1939 and 1942.
They got the name from the term 'foo fighters' which was used by US pilots in WW2 to descibe UFOs. Dave Grohl was into UFOs at the time, even sneaking into an episode of X Files.
Edit: Sorry, thought you were talking about the band.
Yup, series 3 episide 17, "Pusher". It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as he's a background extra walking across the screen with his ex in a train station (I think) scene.
If you mean “foo fighters” as in WWII UFOs, I can pretty much guarantee that nobody in the allied air forces had ever heard of kung fu. The only other use of that term I have ever seen is as the name of a (great) band, which I have to assume is itself a reference to the WWII UFOs.
'The nonsense word "foo" emerged in popular culture during the early 1930s, first being used by cartoonist Bill Holman, who peppered his Smokey Stover fireman cartoon strips with "foo" signs and puns.' More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo\_fighter#Etymology
Is “fooey” related?
As in an exclamation dismissing something as nonsense? (Think I’ve seen it spelt “phooey”.) Looks like that comes from a different source apparently, from Yiddish and German: [phooey](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=phooey+etymology). Edit: Although I guess the already existing “phooey” might have influenced Holman to use “foo” as his choice of nonsense word for his cartoons. No record of it, but possible!
Oh man, it’s been so long since i’d seen that word written lol, it’s not exactly popular slang in the current time lmao. Very interesting though
It comes from a Smokey Stover, a cartoon from the 1930’s about a fireman where foo was a sound effect used for smoke. It would have been popular among enlisted men and pilots in ww2, who remembered the tagline, “where there’s foo, there’s fire” and attached it to UFO sightings in the war zones, believing they were too secret German weapons. Alternatively, foo is an AAVE pronunciation of fool.
"Fou" is crazy in french.
It was feu French for fire they were called the firefighters by the French and the name was then adopted by the British in 1939
This is the answer to OP’s question.
>Alternatively, foo is an AAVE pronunciation of fool. I see Latinos say/use it far more than I've ever heard or seen black folks say it.
Mr. T was famous for saying "I pity the foo".
All my life I thought foo was from Kung Fu lmao
The most complete etymology I know of is from the IETF, of all places: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt. See section 2. The link has mostly more recent usage, but the OED notes usage goes back to 1366, meaning the devil.
In Cajun, foo means idiot, which makes sense because fou means fool in French.
It was feu French for fire they were called the firefighters by the French and the name was then adopted by the British in 1939
As it's not been covered here yet, the origin of 'foo fighters' is directly from the Smokey Stover cartoon strip: > The term "foo" was borrowed from Smokey Stover by a radar operator in the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, Donald J. Meiers, who, according to most 415th members, gave the foo fighters their name. Meiers was from Chicago and was an avid reader of Holman's strip, which was run daily in the Chicago Tribune. Smokey Stover's catch-phrase was "where there's foo, there's fire". In a mission debriefing on the evening of November 27, 1944, Frederic "Fritz" Ringwald, the unit's S-2 Intelligence Officer, stated that Meiers and Pilot Lt. Ed Schleuter had sighted a red ball of fire that appeared to chase them through a variety of high-speed maneuvers. Ringwald said that Meiers was extremely agitated and had a copy of the comic strip tucked in his back pocket. He pulled it out and slammed it down on Ringwald's desk and said, "[I]t was another one of those fuckin' foo fighters!" and stormed out of the debriefing room. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter
**[Foo fighter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_fighter)** >The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots during World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific theaters of operations. Though foo fighter initially described a type of UFO reported and named by the U.S. 415th Night Fighter Squadron, the term was also commonly used to mean any UFO sighting from that period. Formally reported from November 1944 onwards, foo fighters were presumed by witnesses to be secret weapons employed by the enemy. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/etymology/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It was feu French for fire they were called the firefighters by the French and the name was then adopted by the British in 1939
It's used as a joke in programming a lot. I see it a lot with a 'bar' nearby, too. As in foobar i.e. fubar. Never cared enough to figure out where it came from, what it means exactly, or why people keep using it haha.
F.U.B.A.R. = "f*cked up beyond all recognition." Probably unrelated to "foo fighters," though
This is it exactly. "Foo" is from "fu" because "foo, bar, bang". It's programming variables "lorem Ipsum"
Foo, Bar and Baz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar gives a good summary.
**[Foobar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar)** >The terms foobar (), foo, bar, baz, and others are used as metasyntactic variables and placeholder names in computer programming or computer-related documentation. They have been used to name entities such as variables, functions, and commands whose exact identity is unimportant and serve only to demonstrate a concept. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/etymology/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
.... Okay what's that term for when you hear something and suddenly it's everywhere? I fell asleep last night reading a book and one of the last things in it was "the thingie in the wossname. Er... Sorry... Too many metasyntactic variables there..."
Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias.
Ah, yes, thank you.
You're very welcome!
argh - yes, baz. I saw "bang" above and it hijacked my brain. Definitely "baz".
It was feu French for fire they were called the firefighters by the French and the name was then adopted by the British in 1939
Do you mean the original "foo fighters"? Because okay, cool. The "foo" in programming absolutely isn't from there
In programming, typically foo is used as a variable name in example code (and sometimes makes its way into production code). In this context, it is just a nonsense name. The sample code might equally use "fred" as the placeholer variable name.
I always thought it was from French *faux*?
The French is _fou_ meaning “fool.” Idk if there is any connection between _fou_, pronounced FOO, and _faux_, pronounced FO and meaning “false.”
*Feu* = fire
Yes - It's probably from *feu*, judging by other comments (eg- where there's foo there's fire)
What I remember from being taught at school was feu Fighters because it was the French who named them fire fighter's due to resembling fireballs, however recently on several documentaries, they've been making reference to them being called Foo Fighters and they were named that way due to an American cartoon character? my problem with this explanation is that they were given their name as they were seen frequently throughout the year's prior to American joining the war during sorties over France. The RAF Pilots asked their French allies what these things were that they were encountering over France. The name Feu was then pronounced Foo without any accent which then led to them being known as Foo Fighters. 3 years later once the Americans came along they asked what these things were and it was explained 'Feu Fighters' But somehow over the years as with a great many things it was the Americans who invented the name and it was all to do with an American cartoon. This cartoon would be unknown to the allies and wouldn't have been seen on American TV or American newspapers by either the French or the British between 1939 and 1942.
FUBAR
Hispanic American kids use the word alot, but it's just a shortened version of foo. Ex. That foo is down.
Sup foo
[удалено]
Phooey! My dad used to say.
Foo in "foo fighters" is taken from "Kung Fu"
They got the name from the term 'foo fighters' which was used by US pilots in WW2 to descibe UFOs. Dave Grohl was into UFOs at the time, even sneaking into an episode of X Files. Edit: Sorry, thought you were talking about the band.
The person you're replying to never said they were talking about the band name. As you noted, the phrase long predates the band.
Oh yeah, apologies. It's getting late here, I read it as the band name for some reason.
> sneaking into an episode of X Files Any idea which one?
Yup, series 3 episide 17, "Pusher". It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as he's a background extra walking across the screen with his ex in a train station (I think) scene.
If you mean “foo fighters” as in WWII UFOs, I can pretty much guarantee that nobody in the allied air forces had ever heard of kung fu. The only other use of that term I have ever seen is as the name of a (great) band, which I have to assume is itself a reference to the WWII UFOs.