SNAFU

SNAFU is an acronym meaning Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. It is sometimes bowdlerized to Situation Normal: All Fouled Up or similar.^[1] The acronym is believed to have originated in the US Army during World War II.

In modern usage snafu is sometimes used as an interjection. Snafu also sometimes refers to a bad situation, mistake, or cause of trouble. For example, in 2005 the The New York Times had an article titled "Hospital Staff Cutback Blamed for Test Result Snafu".^[2]

Origin

SNAFU simply defined as situation normal and used in a military context, was first recorded in American Notes and Queries in their September 1941 issue.^[3] Time magazine used the term in their June 15, 1942 issue: "Last week U.S. citizens knew that gasoline rationing and rubber requisitioning were snafu."^[3] Most reference works, including the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, supply an origin date of 1940-1944, generally attributing it to the U.S. Army. Rick Atkinson ascribes the origin of SNAFU, FUBAR and a bevy of other terms to cynical GIs ridiculing the Army's penchant for acronyms.^[4] Two proprietary variants of the phrase are also attributed to each of the primary services of the time. The Navy version went: "Situation Normal; Army Fucked Up", while the Army retort was "Some Navy Asshole Fucked Up".^{[citation needed]} Beyond serviceman apocrypha, there are no official sources for these variants.

At least three songs from that era can be traced that either are titled "SNAFU" or feature SNAFU as part of discussion.

• Leonard Feather/Shorty Sherock's "SNAFU" — a jazz instrumental composition.^[5]
• Glenn Miller's "SNAFU Jump".^[6]

• Carole Landis and Martha Raye performed a skit about SNAFU sometime during the war.^[7]

The Army and Warner Bros. Cartoons produced training cartoons during WWII featuring a character called Private Snafu who always did the wrong thing.

The attribution of SNAFU to the American military is not universally accepted. It has also been attributed to the British.^[8]

References

• Hakim, Joy (1995). A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509514-6. 

External links

• 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