Friday, April 19, 2013

the meaning of snafu, part 2

So the first words Jay said "do you know the meaning of 'snafu'?"

And my answer: "Yes, I know both meanings" baffled him, as he apparently thought there was only one.

Here's the story of how something obscene came to be filtered through the mouth of my dad, and turned into harmless, though not particularly socially acceptable. When I was a kid, growing up in a house, where my dad had served in the military for many years, I was told that the acronym represented the Army expression (and you know how the gov't loves an acronym!): Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. Ggenerally applicable to anything related to government inefficiency - which is understandably commonplace and completely mind-boggling-ly irritatingly likely when dealing with any federal agency, especially the things that move with the implacable speed of the DOD.

Only to many years later, after I had learned and prolifically used more than my share of red-neck language, to discover that the fourth word in the expression was indeed a four letter word, and one that started with the sixth letter of the alphabet, but was not something as mundane and repeatable as 'foul'. But instead something that would not be used in polite company... and I am sure My readers (all three of you), with your tender ears have never been exposed to such ill-mannered language.

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