[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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