Off the top of my head, the Gang of Four was a Chinese political faction in the sixties (referenced in the headline over the letter, above), the name of a band a few decades back, and the term given, also a few years back, to the originators of Design Patterns, an object oriented programming paradigm. I wouldn't be surprised if the phrase has not been used historically in other contexts as well. I'm thinking as long as Ms. Walters was writing about four people and not say 3 or 5, what exactly the fooforah is four :)
Re: “Took the Words out of My Mao”
Off the top of my head, the Gang of Four was a Chinese political faction in the sixties (referenced in the headline over the letter, above), the name of a band a few decades back, and the term given, also a few years back, to the originators of Design Patterns, an object oriented programming paradigm. I wouldn't be surprised if the phrase has not been used historically in other contexts as well. I'm thinking as long as Ms. Walters was writing about four people and not say 3 or 5, what exactly the fooforah is four :)