It is my recollection that either Marc Blank (most likely) or Bruce Daniels first created the executable with the funny name “zork.” While “foo” and “bar” were very common nonsense words often used for experimental or temporary efforts, Zork was the first usage of “zork” that I recall.

More commonly used nonsense words were the aforementioned “foo” and “bar,” and also “bletch,” “gritch,” “grotch,” “mumble,” and “frotz.” You may notice that “frotz” eventually made it into the game as a magic spell.

Of your various possible explanations, “zorch” to “zork” seems most likely to me. I was and am the most into SF of the original authors and I had never seen either Brunner’s or Carter’s usages. It is remotely possible Marc had seen the Psych usage, but I doubt it.

It was fundamentally wordplay.

– Dave

Actually, the correct spelling is “fubar,” and it’s not a nonsense word at all, it’s a very widely used (WW2 era) acronym used in the military to describe especially bad battlefield casualties. It stands for “[Fouled] Up Beyond All Recognition” (although of course the word is not “fouled”). It’s a cousin of the more widely known “snafu” (Situation Normal, All [Fouled] Up”)

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/09/19/050919fa_fact_grann

The course 9 website explains that to do such as concentration,

Courses are drawn from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and programs in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. The subject material in these courses touches upon most of the topics that might be found in a ‘”traditional” Psychology department.

This current official statement from Course 9 seems to me to declare that there’s currently no psychology department, per se, at MIT. It at least says that there isn’t a “traditional” one.