[Ads-l] fu lion - 1913, foo dog - 1915, foo lion - 1918

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Tue Feb 16 04:01:46 UTC 2016


On 2/15/2016 9:14 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      fu lion - 1913, foo dog - 1915, foo lion - 1918
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_guardian_lions) =
> provides a link to a paper on =E2=80=9Cfoo=E2=80=9D (not on the Oxford =
> Dictionary site, though the word =E2=80=9Cfoo=E2=80=9D evidently is =
> cited from Chaucer). The link is:
>
> http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3092.txt
>
> Here are links to earliest citations I found on Google Books with =
> summary information. All are Google-dated.
>
> 1. fu lion - 1913 - http://bit.ly/1TmKb3C
>
> [completely illegible to my eyes]
>
> 2. foo dog - 1915 - http://bit.ly/1PXMnfv
>
> The bat, the bird, the butterfly, the dragon, the kylin, the Food dog, =
> the leopard, =E2=80=A6
>
> 3. foo lion - 1918 - http://bit.ly/20A8gTG
>
> Sacred Foo Lion of Cloisonn=C3=A9=20
--

Item #1 appears to read "fiction" rather than "fu lion".

-- Doug Wilson

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