Editing SNAFU

{{Short description|Military acronym slang}}
{{other uses|Snafu (disambiguation){{!}}Snafu}}
[[File:Private_SNAFU.JPG|thumb|right|''[[Private Snafu]]'' was a series of instructional cartoons devised by [[Frank Capra]] and produced by [[Warner Bros. Cartoons|Warner Brothers]] animators such as [[Chuck Jones]] for the US Army during [[World War II]].]] 

'''SNAFU''' is an [[acronym]] that is widely used to stand for the sarcastic expression "'''Situation normal: all fucked up'''". It is a well-known example of [[military slang|military acronym slang]]. It is sometimes censored to "all fouled up" or similar.<ref>{{cite news|last=Neary|first=Lynn|title=Fifty Years of 'The Cat in the Hat'|newspaper=NPR.org| publisher=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|quote= 'Situation Normal All . . . All Fouled Up,' as the first SNAFU animated cartoon put it|url= https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7651308|access-date=2008-01-08}}</ref> It means that the situation is bad, but that this is a normal state of affairs. The acronym is believed to have originated in the [[United States Marine Corps]] during [[World War II]].

In modern usage, ''SNAFU'' is used to describe running into an error or problem that is large and unexpected. For example, in 2005, ''[[The New York Times]]'' published an article titled "Hospital Staff Cutback Blamed for Test Result Snafu".<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/nyregion/hospital-staff-cutback-blamed-for-test-result-snafu.html "Hospital Staff Cutback Blamed for Test Result Snafu"], in: ''[[The New York Times]]'', May 19 2005.</ref> ''SNAFU'' also sometimes refers to a bad situation, mistake, or cause of trouble, and it is sometimes used as an [[interjection]].

==Origin==
Most reference works, including the ''[[Random House Unabridged Dictionary]]'', supply an origin date of 1940–1944, generally attributing it to the [[U.&nbsp;S. Army|U.S. Army]]. [[Rick Atkinson]] ascribes the origin of ''SNAFU'', ''[[FUBAR]]'', and many other terms to cynical [[GI (military)|GIs]] ridiculing the army's penchant for acronyms.<ref>''The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944'' (part of ''The Liberation Trilogy'') by [[Rick Atkinson]].</ref>

The first known publication of the term was by ''[[The Kansas City Star]]'', on July 27, 1941.<ref>{{cite news |title=Snafu, and All's Well |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kansas-city-star-snafu/122568792/ |work=The Kansas City Star |date=July 27, 1941 |location=Kansas City, MO |page=5 |access-date=April 9, 2023 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}} {{Open access}}</ref> It was subsequently recorded in ''[[American Notes and Queries]]'' in the September 1941 issue (which the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' in 1986 credited as the term's first appearance).<ref name="OED">''A Supplement to the [[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', R. W. Burchfield, ed., Volume IV Se-Z, 1986.</ref> ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine used the term in its June 16, 1942, issue: "Last week U.S. citizens knew that gasoline rationing and rubber requisitioning were snafu."<ref name="OED" /> 

The attribution of ''SNAFU'' to the American military is not universally accepted: it has also been attributed to the British,<ref>''Rawson's Dictionary of Euphemisms and Other Doubletalk.'' [[Chicago, IL]] 2002, Hugh Rawson.</ref> although the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives its origin and first recorded use as U.S. military slang.<ref name="OED"/>

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."<ref>{{Citation| last= Elkin| first= Frederick| date=March 1946 |title= The Soldier's Language| journal= American Journal of Sociology| volume= 51| issue= 5 Human Behavior in Military Society| publisher= The University of Chicago Press| pages= 414–422| jstor= 2771105 |doi=10.1086/219852| s2cid= 144746694}}</ref>

==Similar acronyms==
===SUSFU<!--'SUSFU' redirects here-->===
'''SUSFU'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> is an acronym for '''Situation unchanged: still fucked up''', but can also be [[Bowdlerization|bowdlerized]]—just like ''SNAFU''—to '''Situation unchanged: still fouled up'''. It is used in a [[military]] context and was first recorded in the ''[[American Notes and Queries|ANQ]]'' in their September 1941 issue.{{cn|date=November 2024|reason=it mentions a September 1941 ANQ issue without adding it to references}}

==See also==
* [[List of military slang terms#Acronym slang|Acronym slang in the military]]
* [[Historic recurrence]]
* [[List of government and military acronyms]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
*{{cite book|last=Hakim|first=Joy|title=A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=1995| location=New York|isbn=0-19-509514-6}}

==Further reading==
* [[Ed Helms]], ''SNAFU: the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups'', New York, Grand Central Publishing, 2025. "Spanning from the 1950’s to the 2000’s ...  ''SNAFU'' ... offers ... insights that ... might [help] prevent history from repeating itself again and again."

==External links==
{{Wiktionary}}
*[http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=SNAFU&Find=Find Acronym Finder's SNAFU entry]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090323040108/http://www.snafu.com/Snafu/SnafuStory.html How the term SNAFU originated]
*[http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/SNAFU-principle.html SNAFU Principle]
*[https://archive.org/details/home_front 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.
*[http://www.the-snafu-special.com The SNAFU Special – Official website of the C-47 #43-15073]
*Episode 101 ([https://archive.org/download/CommandPerformance/CP_44-01-15_ep101-Frances_Langford__Virginia_OBrien.mp3 MP3 6M]) of [https://archive.org/details/CommandPerformance Command Performance] from 15 Jan 1944 includes a song about SNAFU by the [[Spike Jones]] band. 

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[[Category:Acronyms]]
[[Category:Military slang and jargon]]