I realized it was army slang - but it's instructive, I think, that I
read it in an American novel rather than hearing it from my father, who
was in the Pioneers during WW 2, told me quite a lot about his time
there but strangely never mentioned SNAFU, so for me it's an American
term, which may indeed have become more common in the USA after the war.
Etymological origins are never quite so interesting as the history of
the assimilation of words. I believe that the fairly widespread
knowledge of the term in Britain is due to *Illuminatus*.
emjay
Robin Hamilton wrote:
> [Drafted a couple of days ago, but only just getting round to sending
> this.]
>
>> Belated thanks, Ken. Quite a few of these are really old, like SNAFU,
>> which I personally first came across in the *Illuminatus!* trilogy
>> back in
>> the early 70s, unless it was already in *V*, which I actually &
>> appropriately read in the late 60s.
>> emjay
>
>
> SNAFU is a bit earlier than that, at least WWII, I think originally RAF
> slang. 40s maybe? "Situation Normal -- All Fucked Up," usually
> euphemised
> to conclude, "Fouled Up." Brit rather than Yank, but the Yanks
> (Pynchon?)
> may have taken it up. Down.
>
> (Bet TANJ isn't included in the list!)
>
> Robin
>
> Checked this. Apparently it's army rather than airforce. From
> Beale/Partridge:
>
> snafu. 'Situation normal-all fucked (politely, fouled) up':
>
> Services', orig. and mainly army: since ca. 1940. (P-G-R.)
>
> A slightly later, mostly army officers', var. was snefu (or even
> sneefoo),
> where e=everything; but that was obsolete by 1950.
>
> At first, written S.N.A.F.U., but soon shortened and typographically
> 'solidified'. By 1943, it had spread to the Americans. Cf. the US
> derivative
> v., meaning 'to bungle; to reduce to chaos', as in 'Everything snafues
> from
> the start' (Grover C. Hall, Jr, 1000 Destroyed, 1961). See DCpp.
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