Herbert Xu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Miles Bader <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > FWIW, the `fu' in kung-fu means something like style or technique, so > > apt-fu sort of makes sense if you think of as a tool for doing cool > > things using the power of apt... :-) > > I'm afraid that although the character `fu' has many meanings, but > style or technique isn't one of them. > > Here are the rough translations of the various meanings of `fu' in my > dictionary: > > a1) Opposite of a woman, that is, a man. > a2) An adult man. > a3) A farming method in the Zhou dynasty (1000BC-221BC). > > b1) Pronoun in the second person. > b2) Demonstrative prnoun, as in `this' or `these'. > b3) Mortal man, as opposed to the supernatural. > b4) Denotes exclamation at the end of a sentence. > b5) Denotes interrogation at the end of a sentence. > b6) Used in the beginning of a sentence, has no meaning. > b7) Used in the middle of a sentence, has no meaning. > > The word kung-fu originally refers to the time consumed by performing > tasks. The present-day meaning comes from the fact that martial art > usually requires years/decades of training, which is a lot of kung-fu. > > In this sense the character has no meaning. Although kung-fu has > also been used to refer to man-hours where `fu' presumably refers to > man, but the only usage I know is from the Three Kingdoms period > (~200AD) and it is probably not related to the present-day meaning. > > Therefore, `fu' has no meaning at all in kung-fu. So it is entirely > appropriate to construct the word `apt-fu'.
Very cool explanation. I've always used 'kung-fu' and 'kung' (pronounced 'gung' in Cantonese) to refer to both the time consumed to do work and various martial art forms; yet I never realized that I've never used or heard the word 'fu' used alone. With that, apt-fu did take a lot of kung-fu to produce :) -- Eric Wong [EMAIL PROTECTED] Petta Technology, Inc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
