Hold My Place
. . . apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as--What d’ye call him--Thing’em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind,
and ’St--’st--’st--and What’s-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you.
--The Mikado
We don't do crime here....Contracts, copyright, companies floated, that's our thingie.
--J. Barnett, Firing Squad, 1981
foo
has been listed 20 times with 5 comments
whatever
has been listed 39 times with 2 comments
whatsit
has been listed 5 times with 1 comment
whatnot
has been listed 14 times with 0 comments
doojigger
has been listed 1 time with 0 comments
hoo-hah
has been listed 3 times with 8 comments
frammis
has been listed 3 times with 1 comment
stuff
has been listed 23 times with 0 comments
gaff
has been listed 9 times with 3 comments
thang
has been listed 2 times with 0 comments
thingie
has been listed 1 time with 1 comment
frobnitz
has been listed 1 time with 4 comments
doofer
has been listed 1 time with 0 comments
gewgaw
has been listed 37 times with 3 comments
dingus
has been listed 6 times with 1 comment
thingummy
has been listed 4 times with 0 comments
gimmick
has been listed 8 times with 0 comments
jigger
has been listed 10 times with 0 comments
dealy
has been listed 1 time with 0 comments
dealie-bob
has been listed 2 times with 0 comments
jobby
has been listed 2 times with 0 comments
widget
has been listed 45 times with 0 comments
gadget
has been listed 16 times with 1 comment
whatsis
has been listed 1 time with 0 comments
whosis
has been listed 2 times with 0 comments
gizmo
has been listed 20 times with 0 comments
doojiggy
has been listed 2 times with 0 comments
doohickey
has been listed 14 times with 1 comment
doodad
has been listed 12 times with 1 comment
A fine addition. Thanks, Pro.
Youknowwhatimean, as in choanopitaphilia.
I think they're called passe-partout words. And I also think it's time to go to sleep...
Excellent suggestion. Thanks, m.
How about whangdoodle? In addition to being an imaginary beast, OED2 defines it as "Something unspecified, a 'thingummy'".
RFC 3092: "Let's child do anythig for fun, if only not cry" from Russians saying by Oleg (5/31/2005)
Foobar as one word, sometimes; but FUBAR isn't usually just used to represent a variable.
'Hackers do not generally use this to mean FUBAR in either the slang or jargon sense... In RFC1639, “FOOBAR†was made an abbreviation for “FTP Operation Over Big Address Recordsâ€, but this was an obvious backronym. It has been plausibly suggested that “foobar†spread among early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly because “foo bar†parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo signal'
catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/foobar.html
I thought it was fubar?
Foo without bar? How could you? (The linked RFC is from the list of April 1st RFCs, but foo and bar genuinely are in use.)
Er. What about whatsit and stuff? Or whatever.
Whatnot.
It also really contributed to people being kind and civilized in their comments. :)
I think the 'foo' bit of foo fighter might qualify. But I like these old lists where we have to almost beg the list owner for admittance. Makes one think very hard about the suggestions.
It's just such a rich trove of linguistic fun, isn't it? ;-)
nice! I like the Mikado quote!