RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Origin of SPAM (Yes! I am a google GOD)

["Ross, Matthew" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> For several reasons.  One is that "foo" was very popular just 
> before WWII.
> Another reason is that some people who have been studying 
> 'foo' believe
> that it had something to do with the subsequent invention of the words
> SNAFU and FUBAR.

Could you enlighten us as to who these people are or to some of the data they've gathered that supports this conclusion? I've been googling, but I've not found anyone that agrees with this.

> Yes, we know that those are acronyms and we 
> know what
> they mean, but there's more to it than that. 

It's not that they're acronyms with known meanings, its that they had a clear derivation from the situation they were coined in that did not include the word "foo".

> For example, 
> they could have
> pronounced them like 'snaffuh' and 'fuhbar' (pronouncing the 'u' as in
> 'up')
> or like 'snafyoo' and 'fyoobar', but they didn't.  Why 
> not? Well,
> maybe it was because 'foo' was already popular and funny and so they
> wanted to use the foo sound in their new funny term.

Then you're suggesting the pronunciation is based on "foo" rather than the words derivation?

> My point is, we
> (you) don't know. 

I don't know that the data that was shown for the derivation of SPAM was true either. I choose to believe it because it isn't far-fetched. Claiming FUBAR and SNAFU are derived from Foo and not the phrases they are acronyms for IS far-fetched.

> It is remarkable that SNAFU and FUBAR 
> popped up just
> after foo did.  It could be a complete coincidence, but I have some
> doubts.

I don't doubt that Foo had something to do with their popularity, and could even have contributed to how most people pronounced it, but claiming Foo motivated people to conjure up those terms is going to require a lot more logic put behind the argument.

More towards where we got onto this topic of foobar vs. fubar:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/foobar.html
"It has been plausibly suggested that 'foobar' spread among early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly because 'foo bar' parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo signal; if a digital signal is active low (so a negative or zero-voltage condition represents a '1') then a horizontal bar is commonly placed over the signal label."

First suggestion I've found for where the "bar" might have come from outside of "fubar".

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion