Thursday, December 08, 2011

Does the press know what "snafu" means when they use it ?

Snafu mars Pearl Harbor 70th anniversary ceremony

...on Wednesday, emcee Leslie Wilcox was still speaking at 7:55 a.m., even as the Hawaii Air National Guard's F-22's roared overhead on schedule 42 seconds later...

That's an interesting acronym repeated hundreds of times today in the press and media given its real meaning.

situation normal all fucked up (fouled up)
First Known Use: circa 1941

On 16 June 1942 Time first used it; one wonders how bass-ackwards the country has become when it can kill but not speak.

The Army has a laconic term for chronic befuddlement: snafu.* Last week U.S. citizens knew that gasoline rationing and rubber requisitioning were snafu. For months the people and their leaders had pussyfooted around the twin horrors. There were orders and counter-orders. All were different. The people, numb with bewilderment, choked with wrath, gave up.


"Snafu," pronounced "snaffoo"—a good, grumbling Army word, now has a superlative. Snafu, politely translated, means "situation normal, all fouled up."

Snafu is when the supply ship arrives and the stuff on the bottom should have been on top. Snafu is when radio receiving sets arrive at a jungle camp without batteries. Snafu is when a regiment unloads its trucks overseas and finds most of them so worn that they are ready to fall apart. Snafu is when the yellow-fever vaccine gives everybody jaundice; when the planes cannot fly because spare parts ordered four months ago never show up; when headquarters...

Would they print that the event was Fubar (FUBAR) all day ? I doubt it...


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