Joe Bloggs

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The name Joe Bloggs or Fred Bloggs is a commonly used placeholder name in United Kingdom teaching, programming, and other thinking and writing. The surname Bloggs on its own is sometimes used in the same way. Fred alone can be a programming placeholder - note that its letters are close together on the keyboard. Other placeholders (eg in advertisements for store cards/credit cards) sometimes used are Mr/Mrs A Smith or A. N. Other.

The term predates[1] the originally American word Blog, which was coined in 1999 as a play on "web log" or online diary. Equivalent American usages to Joe or Fred Bloggs include John Doe John Q. Public and Joe Schmoe. In Germany Erika Mustermann and Otto Normalverbraucher are used.

In 1985, Shami Ahmed started a clothing company called "The Legendary Joe Bloggs Clothing Company".

[edit] Example uses

  • In The Princeton Review standardized test preparation courses, "Joe Bloggs" represents the average test-taker, and students are trained to identify the "Joe Bloggs answer", or the choice which seems right but may be misleading on harder questions. [1]
  • In an episode of the TV series Firefly "Joey Bloggs" is the name of a man Malcolm Reynolds uses as part of a cover story, only to find out Joey Bloggs is Miss Khouris best friend and killed himself several months earlier. The show's Anglophile creator Joss Whedon possibly included it as a joke.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ See, for example, Paul, G. A. (Jul., 1938). "Critical Notices". Mind, New Series 47 (187): 361-376. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
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