Fu
- Fū 夫 means husband or man in itself, but the usage to which this article refers is actually from the well known compound term 功夫, in Wade-Giles romanization: kung fu; in pinyin romanization: gōngfu - meaning skilled discipline or otherwise extraordinary ability and, in English speaking pop culture at least; Chinese martial arts is a suffix coined from the popular Western usage of kung fu, and used to denote particular "mastery" of a subject, such as anime fu, cooking fu, math fu, etc. Ironically, in this sense fu is closer to the original Chinese meaning of kung fu (功夫) than the popular Western usage of the word kung fu is.
- The word probably first appeared in the tongue-in-cheek usage "your (whatever) fu is weak", which parodies the stock martial arts movie taunt: "Your kung fu is weak!"
- The suffix has also been regularly used by cult film critic Joe Bob Briggs in his reviews, usually appending it to the names of items used in fight scenes. For example, if an action sequence featured the use of a chair, Briggs would describe it as chair-fu. The suffix has been adopted with that meaning by many devotees of b-movies.
Last updated: 10-12-2005 15:28:44
Last updated: 01-04-2007 01:18:57
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