The missing link is 'FURCHTBAR'. Smokey Stover started the meme of substituting 'foo' into words. 1930s german language classes turned furchtbar (frightful) in

The missing link is 'FURCHTBAR'. Smokey Stover started the meme of substituting 'foo' into words. 1930s german language classes turned furchtbar (frightful) into 'foo-bar'. The US military acronymized it into FUBAR. Apparently MIT adopted fu() and bar() as algebra placeholders. I'm partial to the 1938 song WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS IS FOO - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W2pljKyCgwc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W2pljKyCgwc