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True story: During a summer internship years ago, I used Foo and Bar as placeholders throughout a web page comp. My boss sat me down for a serious chat about professionalism. Turns out he had never heard of Foo and Bar. Prior to that conversation, I had never heard of FUBAR.


Yes, that's the source of the symbols. Some people like them, some think they're unprofessional, yada yada. But I've never once had someone try to interpret "foo" as profanity...


Possibly, though it seems somewhat more complex than that.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/foo.html


I think that's where FOO and BAR come from.




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