metasyntactic variable

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	This is the JargonFile (V4.00) entry for metasyntactic variable - Next: MFTL, Prev: meta bit
:metasyntactic variable: /n./ A name used in examples and understood to stand for whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class of things under discussion. The word foo is the canonical example. To avoid confusion, hackers never (well, hardly ever) use foo or other words like it as permanent names for anything. In filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time. To some extent, the list of ones preferred metasyntactic variables is a cultural signature. They occur both in series (used for related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons. Here are a few common signatures: foo, bar, baz, quux, quuux, quuuux...: MIT/Stanford usage, now found everywhere (thanks largely to early versions of this lexicon!). At MIT (but not at Stanford), baz dropped out of use for a while in the 1970s and 80s. A common recent mutation of this sequence inserts qux before quux. bazola, ztesch: Stanford (from mid-70s on). foo, bar, thud, grunt: This series was popular at CMU. Other CMU-associated variables include gorp. foo, bar, fum: This series is reported to be common at XEROX PARC. fred, barney: See the entry for fred. These tend to be Britishisms. corge, grault, flarp: Popular at Rutgers University and among GOSMACS hackers. zxc, spqr, wombat: Cambridge University (England). shme Berkeley, GeoWorks, Ingres. Pronounced /shme/ with a short /e/. snork Brown University, early 1970s. foo, bar, zot Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. blarg, wibble New Zealand. toto, titi, tata, tutu France. pippo, pluto, paperino Italy. Pippo /peepo/ and Paperino /pa-per-ee-no/ are the Italian names for Goofy and Donald Duck. aap, noot, mies The Netherlands. These are the first words a child used to learn to spell on a Dutch spelling board. Of all these, only foo and bar are universal (and baz nearly so). The compounds foobar and foobaz also enjoy very wide currency. Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; barf and mumble, for example. See also [[Commonwealth Hackish]] for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996 - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)