this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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The venerable Jargon File has the French metasyntactic variables (i.e. the equivalents to foo and bar) as toto, titi, tata and tutu.
Or to take this in another direction: foo sounds like French "fou" which means "mad" (as in "insane"), so "coucou" might be an interesting alternative.
Kansas doggie, titties, indian car, pink skirt are strange metasyntactic variables.
I figure they're more likely related, in spirit and vocalisation if not etymologically, to the French phrase «et patati, et patata», translatable as "blah blah blah" or "yada yada yada".
Or maybe something like "Foutu en l'air" and "Au-delà de tout irréparable"?