foo

[Benjamin Barrett]

Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: foo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I suppose the "fu" is the first character on this page ...
> http://uukt.idv.tw/shop/fd.htm ... (second character is the "dog")
>
> MW3 says "fu2" which would be right.
>
That blows my theory apart. That gets much better mileage on Google and
is "happiness, good fortune,blessing" according to Mandarin Tools. It's
fu2/fu4 in Mandarin, but fuk1 in Cantonese. (The character I had cited
is fu4 in Mandarin and fu3 in Cantonese.)
> Here is "fu dog" applied to a Pekingese (called "lion dog" in Chinese):
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekingese (English) [see "Foo (or Fu) dog"
> under "alternative names", upper right]
>
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8B%AE%E5%AD%90%E7%8B%97 (Chinese) [see
> Chinese equivalent, upper right]
>
Note that the first alternative name on the Chinese page is also "fu
dog" with the same "fu" character as you cite above. BB

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