wawa

I was bit confused when i read, 'We did wawa and everyone quit.' Holy crap, everyone quite Wawa,
http://www.wawa.com/ . But then I relized by wawa, you meant thingamajob, though not to get confused with http://www.thingamajob.com/ . :sigh:

David Nemeth
Monday, November 17, 2003

And that's why we should stick with the standard, "foo, bar, bat, baz..."

I, too, stumbled on the Wawa.  I had just filled up w/ gas before reading that post, and thought, "huh?"  I guarantee no one would be confused if he said, "we tried Foo and it failed"

nathan
Monday, November 17, 2003

When I worked at attaching whatchamacallits to widgets, I had a manager who read a chapter of 'Dummies Guide to Managing' every week.

Then he'd thy it out on me.

It's possible he tried the wawa method, but I'd stick my fingers in my ears and say Lalala until he went away to bother someone else.

Thankfully some attractive women worked there and, er um, so how's your father?

AJS
Monday, November 17, 2003

Adding more noise...

maybe they quit Wawa to go get some Shmuffins at Sheetz.

I met the heir to to the Sheetz empire once at an event a group I belong to hosted.  We had Wawa hogies.  He wasn't pleased.  It was rather amusing.

Lou
Monday, November 17, 2003

Foo and bar didn't get to where they are today by fearing conflicts with other words.  Maybe wawa will one day be added to the varname canon as one of those secondary words, like quux.

Seriously, that's the part of the article that stood out to me.  I think foo and bar are like those actors you keep seeing over and over again. Sometimes you just want to see new and anonymous ones.

Tayssir John Gabbour
Monday, November 17, 2003

When I think of Wawa I think of:

http://www.wawa.ca/forum/home.asp

most famous for:

http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/goose.htm

http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/wawagoose3.htm

Anonymous Canadian
Monday, November 17, 2003

I guess most of you are too young to remember Gilda Radner doing Baba Wawa? That's what I always think of.

Philo

Philo.
Monday, November 17, 2003

Wawa was obviously a reference to Charlie Brown and the teacher voice.

SG
Monday, November 17, 2003

This is the funniest thread in some time -- now I've got ginger ale coming out of my nose and all over my  monitor. Thanks everybody.

King David
Monday, November 17, 2003

Actually "wawa" is what Richard Feynmann uses for "foo" and "bar" and he's my hero, so that's what I use. It probably predates Charlie Brown's Teacher.

Joel Spolsky
Monday, November 17, 2003

But can you crack a safe putsy?

Monday, November 17, 2003

I suppose wawa is better than the symbols for pokemon characters my advanced calculus professor would use.

SG
Monday, November 17, 2003

For another source of corporate names, or random variable names.

http://www.whatbrandareyou.com/

Jim Rankin
Monday, November 17, 2003

"Indeed, when I design my killer language, the identifiers "foo" and "bar" will be reserved words, never used, and not even mentioned in the reference manual. Any program using one will simply dump core without comment. Multitudes will rejoice."

                                    Tim Peters

Mark Pearce
Monday, November 17, 2003

BTW, for us non-USAns... are their sandwhiches any good? :-)

http://www.wawa.com/foodchoices/images/specsand_05.jpg

Frederic Faure
Monday, November 17, 2003

WaWa is a dairy (yes) and chain of convenience stores (they adapted to a changing market many years ago) based out of WaWa, PA, which is southeast of Philadelphia.

Oddly enough, their sandwhiches are good.

Apparently (it's been years since I've been in one, so I've just read about this) they were one of the first places to switch to computer-based ordering: regular customers use a touch-screen display or similar to specify what they want in some stores. Makes for greater clarity and gives the store a chance to upsell.

WaWa means canadian goose in some native american dialect, thus explaining the Canadian goose links.

mb
Monday, November 17, 2003

s/Southeast/Southwest/

mb
Monday, November 17, 2003

Further background: the Wawa headquarters in Wawa is directly across Rt. 1 from the Franklin Mint, makers of collectible kitsch. They still keep a few cows on the property, I suppose for aesthetic effect.

"Wawa" is Ojibwa for "wild goose"; Longfellow uses it in his poem "Hiawatha". This replaced the earlier and less euphonious name of "Grubb's Bridge". (Admittedly, a chain of convenience stores named "Grubb's" has a certain appeal...)

Chris Hoess
Monday, November 17, 2003

Wawa's sandwiches are quite good. Basically, if there is a 7/11 and a Wawa at the same intersection, I'd go to the Wawa even if it was out of my way.

David Nemeth
Monday, November 17, 2003

Another theory about the connection between "wawa" and Joel:

Joel went to Yale.  There is a WaWa store on York Street in New Haven.

Alex Chernavsky
Monday, November 17, 2003

But has anyone "Blah-blah"-ed your blah blah? (With apologies to Lenny Bruce)

Portabella
Tuesday, November 18, 2003

By the by, I spent my formative teenage years growing up in Wawa, Ontario, Canada.

Wawa Native
Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Well I work at a Wawa in PA and might i just add you would not be eating those sandwiches and thinking they are so good if you knew what went on back there.

CoffeeHead
Thursday, June 10, 2004

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