foo

[Wilson Gray]

Was the uncle able to read Chinese? It seems unlikely that a random
jade statue in Frisco's Chinatown would just happen to have "Foo"
engraved in English on its bottom.

-Wilson

On 1/8/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: foo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
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