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

[Benjamin Barrett]

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_guardian_lions) provides a link to a paper on “foo” (not on the Oxford Dictionary site, though the word “foo” 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, …

3. foo lion - 1918 - http://bit.ly/20A8gTG

Sacred Foo Lion of Cloisonné 

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org