foo

[Benjamin Barrett]

Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> On Jan 8, 2007, at 11:12 AM, John Baker wrote:
>
>
>>         According to the Smokey Stover website,
>> http://www.smokey-stover.com/history.html, "What's Foo? My uncle found
>> this word engraved on the bottom of a jade statue in San Francisco's
>> China town. The word Foo means Good-Luck."
>>
>
> ah, the famous chinese "foo dogs" or "fu dogs", depending on what
> system you use for englishing the chinese.  (there are also lions.)
> "fu" is sometimes translated as 'happiness'.  statues of fu dogs (and
> lions) protect temples and similar buildings.
>
> arnold
>
>
I think fu is the character for bountiful, associated with good
luck/happiness. It is defined at www.mandarintools.com as "abundant,
ample; rich, wealthy". The entire string for "foo dog" appears to be 狗
来富. In case these characters don't come through, they can be
reproduced from the search string
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGGL%2CGGGL%3A2006-39%2CGGGL%3Aen&q=%E7%8B%97%E6%9D%A5%E5%AF%8C&btnG=Search).
BB

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