SNAFUis anacronymthat is widely used to stand for the sarcastic expressionSituation normal: all fucked up.It is a well-known example ofmilitary acronym slang.It is sometimes censored to "all fouled up" or similar.[1]It means that the situation is bad, but that this is a normal state of affairs. The acronym is believed to have originated in theUnited States Marine CorpsduringWorld War II.
In modern usage,SNAFUis used to describe running into an error or problem that is large and unexpected. For example, in 2005,The New York Timespublished an article titled "Hospital Staff Cutback Blamed for Test Result Snafu".[2]SNAFUalso sometimes refers to a bad situation, mistake, or cause of trouble, and it is sometimes used as aninterjection.
Origin
editMost reference works, including theRandom House Unabridged Dictionary,supply an origin date of 1940–1944, generally attributing it to theU.S. Army.Rick Atkinsonascribes the origin ofSNAFU,FUBAR,and many other terms to cynicalGIsridiculing the army's penchant for acronyms.[3]
The first known publication of the term was byThe Kansas City Star,on July 27, 1941.[4]It was subsequently recorded inAmerican Notes and Queriesin the September 1941 issue (which theOxford English Dictionaryin 1986 credited as the term's first appearance).[5]Timemagazine used the term in its June 16, 1942, issue: "Last week U.S. citizens knew that gasoline rationing and rubber requisitioning were snafu."[5]
The attribution ofSNAFUto the American military is not universally accepted: it has also been attributed to the British,[6]although theOxford English Dictionarygives its origin and first recorded use as U.S. military slang.[5]
In a wider study of military slang, Elkin noted in 1946 that there "are a few acceptable substitutes such as 'screw up' or 'mess up,' but these do not have the emphasis value of the obscene equivalent." He considered the expression to be "a caricature of Army direction. The soldier resignedly accepts his own less responsible position and expresses his cynicism at the inefficiency of Army authority." He also noted that "the expression […] is coming into general civilian use."[7]
Similar acronyms
editSUSFU
editSUSFUis an acronym forSituation unchanged: still fucked up,but can also bebowdlerized—just likeSNAFU—toSituation unchanged: still fouled up.It is used in amilitarycontext and was first recorded in theANQin their September 1941 issue.[citation needed]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^Neary, Lynn."Fifty Years of 'The Cat in the Hat'".NPR.org.NPR.Retrieved2008-01-08.
'Situation Normal All... All Fouled Up,' as the first SNAFU animated cartoon put it
- ^"Hospital Staff Cutback Blamed for Test Result Snafu",in:The New York Times,May 19 2005.
- ^The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944(part ofThe Liberation Trilogy) byRick Atkinson.
- ^"Snafu, and All's Well".The Kansas City Star.Kansas City, MO. July 27, 1941. p. 5.RetrievedApril 9,2023– viaNewspapers.com.
- ^abcA Supplement to theOxford English Dictionary,R. W. Burchfield, ed., Volume IV Se-Z, 1986.
- ^Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk.Chicago, IL2002, Hugh Rawson.
- ^Elkin, Frederick (March 1946), "The Soldier's Language",American Journal of Sociology,51(5 Human Behavior in Military Society), The University of Chicago Press: 414–422,doi:10.1086/219852,JSTOR2771105,S2CID144746694
Sources
edit- Hakim, Joy (1995).A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz.New York:Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-509514-6.
External links
edit
- Acronym Finder's SNAFU entry
- How the term SNAFU originated
- SNAFU Principle
- Internet Archive: Private SNAFU – The Home Front (1943)– This is one of 26 Private SNAFU cartoons made by the US Army Signal Corps to educate and boost the morale of the troops.
- The SNAFU Special – Official website of the C-47 #43-15073
- Episode 101 (MP3 6M) ofCommand Performancefrom 15 Jan 1944 includes a song about SNAFU by theSpike Jonesband.