Talk:SNAFU

message: Could someone add the pronunciation(s) for this entry? Is it read out as separate letters ("es-en-ay-ef-ew"), or as a single word? In the latter case, what does it sound like: "ZNAH-foo", "ZNAY-foo", "zna-FEW", ...?
--5.23.32.98 (talk) 10:45, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: It is pronounced as one word and sounds like "Snah-FOO". 2.28.151.187 (talk) 03:43, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation?

message: Just FYI (is that in there? How about FYFI - you guess...), this is a great article. I just added a couple I've heard, and widened the attribution to include other armies. Oh, and on the bowderlized/real discussion, phoque is a legitimate French word, meaning "seal" (as in harbour _, fur _, baby _, etc). Just makes me wonder what the American military would do with that when referring to the Navy Seals? Some phood for phoquing thought ;) Esseh 03:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Random comments from Esseh

message: As I see it, SNAFU has some problems, which is why I've added some tags (permalink).  To identify the problems, it's easiest to point to existing guidelines:
# Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.  Our mission.
# Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.  Just listing information because it's information will lead to an incoherent mess, so we don't do that.
# Wikipedia is not a dictionary, or a slang, jargon, or usage guide.
# Material has to be verifiable using reliable sources.  Something someone read on the Internet or heard in a bar is not considered reliable.
# Material has to be notable.  If six Army squad-mates made up a new acronym one day, that still doesn't belong here, no matter how clever or funny it is.
# Original research is not acceptable here.  This is a fancy way of saying we're supposed to deal in hard facts, not suppositions, guess work, and opinion.  It's not enough for me to say, "I think such-and-such is the answer"; there have to be reliable sources saying that's the answer.
# When multiple subjects could reasonably have the same title, we disambiguate them.  For example, there is a a Roman god Mercury, a planet Mercury, and an element Mercury.  So we disambiguate their pages to Mercury (mythology), Mercury (planet), and Mercury (element).  At Mercury we place a disambiguation page ("dab page"), which functions as a signpost to the proper articles.
This page is currently drifting away from all of the above goals.  It is, in large part, a list of slang (see #2 and #3 above).  Nothing like a reliable source is cited for anything other than "SNAFU" itself (#3 above).  While some funny acronym variants may have occasional usage, that doesn't make them notable (#5 and #6).  Finally, this article list a number of slang entries which have nothing to do with SNAFU (#2), and several things which are not this SNAFU but some other SNAFU, and this should be in their own articles and on the Snafu page (#7).
I propose to start culling things down.  Remove the uncited list-cruft.  Move the not-SNAFU stuff to Snafu, or delete it if it fails other guidelines.  If, when we're done, all that is left is a dictionary definition, move it into one of the existing articles on slang, and turn this into a redirect.
Comments?
—DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Go DragonHawk.  I completely support your efforts.  I would suggest removing all acronyms not found in a standard dictionary (e.g. Dictionary.com).  Madman 00:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have gone ahead and removed the disambiguation and the list of similar acronyms, leaving this focused on the actual word SNAFU.  The list of similar words is next, once I figure out where to put it.  Madman 12:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree. A good place for the similar words might be as a section in Military humor or Military slang or one of its associated See Also pages. Saayiit (talk) 07:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article problems 

message: I agree that some things should not be on this page.  However, I added Private Snafu to it.  I think that it should be here with a link to the Private Snafu page.  It clearly (to me) is a important part of the SNAFU story, that an acronym, especially one that is considered 'dirty', becomes so famous that it is used during the same war that 'invented' the term as a name for a cartoon character, and even more important, one that is used to teach the very soldiers who invented the acronym.  Fanra 09:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but that is already a separate article -- this article is about the common word "snafu".  Thanks, Madman 13:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have pretty much dismissed my point without even giving any kind of reason.  Of course this article is about the word "SNAFU" but that doesn't prevent us from listing the usages of the word.  Indeed, that is the whole idea of having an article, to tell people not only about the word but its use in culture and other things about it.  If you go read just about any article here on wikipedia, many of them are about one subject and yet contain references to other things about the subject and links to other articles that are related.  In fact, I used the  template which is designed just for this kind of thing.  You attempts to keep the article "clean" are to be admired but an article with no information about the subject other than an extremely narrow description without any references to the subject as it relates to the real world is not informative and is not "encyclopedic".  Fanra 23:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be dismissive - I was just in a hurry.  The reason I was dismissive is that there is already a very nice article on Private Snafu.  We can add information on the word "snafu" and how it is used, but two paragraphs on Private Snafu was pretty much equal to the information on the word itself.  I did add a See also link at the bottom to the article.  Madman 00:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the recent edits which added the info on Private Snafu were overly verbose.  In an article about the acronym, two paragraphs on something that was just named after the acronym is not appropriate.  The "See also" link, I suspect, is the right thing. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text:  I agree with Fanra in that this article is likely to be too short even when fully fleshed out.  I suspect it will never be much more than a dictionary definition, and Wikipedia is not a dictionary.  The proper solution in that case is not to fill the article with inappropriate material, but to move the content about snafu into a larger article on (perhaps one on Army slang?) and turn this page into a redirect.  It remains to be seen if that is to be the eventual fate of SNAFU or not.  —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Private Snafu

message: According to one source, the origin of the term SNAFU comes from two American soldiers of the 160th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division at Camp San Luis Obispo, California.   Don Taylor and John Paup were in Radio Network Training sending practice radio messages to each other.  The messages were encrypted with the Converter M-209 device.  Converter M-209 is a small, compact, hand-operated, tape-printing, mechanical device designed to encrypt messages.
According to the story, in April or May of 1941 at the end of a day spent transmitting and receiving test messages, Taylor and Paup would make a game of creating sentences out of the coded letters they had sent.
*CSIAM.... = (Colonel Smith is a moron)
*OTILA.... = (Our tent is leaking again)
*IHTDA.... = (I hate the damn army)
*SNAFU.... = (Situation normal, all fucked up)
Apparently, SNAFU was so catchy that they repeated it to others and it spread throughout the military.
The main problem with this story is that it is impossible to verify.
    
So does should this be added into the article exactly as above or it is not verified enough?  Fanra 09:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are perhaps hundreds of origin stories, and this is just one of them.  In fact, the word "snafu" was cited in a journal in September 1941, so this idea that the word was first created in the spring of 1941 story is very unlikely.  Thanks, Madman 13:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin?

message: In Austria the word ""Schmafu" for nonsense and/or a clusterf*** has existed for quite a while and seems to be documented at least back to the mid-19th Century. According to the German Wiktionary, its origin is apparently from the French "je m'en fou". Austrian German appropriated quite a lot of French words partly because French was spoken by the high nobility and also due to the occupation by the Napoleonic forces in the early 19th century (Congress of Vienna etc.) It might be worth checking out whether the word was ever current among Central European migrants to the US.
See http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schmafu
83.65.178.206 (talk) 10:42, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Nother Idea to Check Out

message: I was watching a DVD on D-DAY and various WWII films, and then I discovered this one humorously composed  song (with video) that had women basically singing (paraphrased) "Oh, I wonder what SNAFU means? Could you tell me? Is it something you wear?" etc, with women acting all innocent.  I'm not sure, but I thought it had Martha Raye, but I wouldn't be able to recognize her unless you found me a picture.  Is this SNAFU Jump?  My research has been very limited with regards to SNAFU Jump.  Could the song with Martha Raye be a third song about SNAFU? 
Fortunately, I may still have limited access to this DVD, so maybe I can find out more about the song next week.
Root4(one) 16:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, this (Words in -FU) and/or this (Show Music on Record: From the 1890s to the 1980s) may be proof of what I'm looking for, but unfortunately, the first is academic, and the second is a copyrighted book, and I may need to get to a university to get to either of them.  Root4(one) 16:33, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  SNAFU Song (lyrics?) 

message: OK, SO HOW AM I GOING TO CITE THIS DVD WITHOUT IT BEING LABELED A SALES PITCH?
Seriously.... That fact needs a citation, but the ONLY place I've seen it is on that DVD.  I can't even put an IMDB reference to it, they don't even appear to document the DVD (well, by looking up St. Clair Entertainment Group anyway).  I mean, shit, if you site a book, is that a "sales pitch" for that book?   Yes, it is a recent DVD, and there may be other DVDs with the same song (for which I have YET to find an actual TITLE), but that would take probably a few tens of dollars of investing in DVDs and in terms of my time/wage ratio much more in terms of dollars I could be making an hour with my contract work but instead have decided to spend on researching for wikipedia articles. 
I think the history of SNAFU, in popular (40s) or GI culture is quite important to the article, and may help confirm or deny that the term was invented when we think it was invented.  I'm not an academic; I must admit, there appear to be some scholarly articles pertaining to this word and other words that I don't have access to that would greatly benefit this article, and actually may contain the info I need.  I just need to start doing my research at a university library.  But for now, I research from home, and I do what I can do.  I DO NOT LIKE people obliterating hours of my work.  I spent over 3 hours looking up that stinking song on Google and other search engines with scant information about it.... I could not find it.  The DVD was my only proof of the song's existence.  Had I not been able to borrow it, I may never have found it again.
Sigh.  I'm just pissed at the moment.  I'll get back with you later.   Half the shit that's used as a reference on wikipedia (internet references, btw) do not match the authenticity of that video.  Hell, you wouldn't even know it was on there had I not told you.  The Menu Title for the video segment doesn't even mention SNAFU; It mentions Carol Landis and Martha Raye.  Even they don't know who the other woman is.  That factoid needs a cite.  Wikipedia is intended to be verifiable.  If I cannot cite not that particular DVD, what the hell is it I can cite?   Root4(one) 04:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, yes, I know, wikipedia is not about original research, and I'm trying to promote that either (although from my previous message, you might think otherwise).  I just thought there were some glaring omissions in the wikipedia article.  Some pop culture references from back then would add and aid those interested in the subject.  We don't have to figure out when it was created.  But maybe we can aid and direct those interested in the subject.    Root4(one) 05:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  SNAFU Song (lyrics?) Part II 

message: Ok, Snafu Jump definitely appears to be by Glenn Miller according to these guys
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snafu-Jump-Glenn-Miller/dp/B000V3IX9Q 
http://www.venerablemusic.com/catalog/TitleDetails.asp?TitleID=13073 
... but I can't find anything that wouldn't be considered promotional, so I'm just going to leave it (for now). Root4(one) 05:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Snafu Jump 

message: I changed this:
: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". Beyond serviceman apocrypha, there are no official sources for these variants.
to this:
: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".
There's already a citation needed tag there.  You don't need to say something to the effect of "this jerk who wrote the previous statement didn't provide a source.  Besides, no sources exist anyway."  I think following the rules of Wikipedia, one could just as easily put [citation needed], because it's pretty hard to prove definitively that the evidence does not exist.  Ufwuct (talk) 13:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: We already have ways to deal with missing sources; this is not one of them.

message: On some US topographic maps of Liberia, there is a small abandoned village called Snafu. It is on the coast, directly south of Roberts International Airport.
During WW2, US Army troops were stationed near what was then known as Roberts Field. On current maps, the location of the old Army Post is identified as Unification City. The Army's mission was to secure the vital rubber supply on nearby Firestone Rubber Plantation. 
The Army supplies were brought ashore from US Navy ships at a nearby coastal inlet, where a small dock was erected. Local Liberians were hired for manual labor and they built a cluster of houses there. This site was called - by the Army troops at the main camp - "Snafu". So the name stuck ... the Army left after the war ... and all that remains is a dot on some small-scale US topo maps, labeled "Snafu".
This lends some credibility to the story that SNAFU originated with Army troops, not the USMC. There were no Marines in Liberia during WW2, but there were plenty of Army troops (including radiomen). For a USMC expression to make its way from the Pacific to a remote Army post on Africa's Atlantic coast would be more unbelievable than the US Army radioman version.
If my memory is correct, the topo maps were 1:15000 scale "ground" maps. Mine were from the 1980s. I don't know if that scale of map has been updated since ... probably not, since the US had no ground action in that quad since WW2.
BobDohse (talk) 17:41, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liberian village: Snafu ... and its US Army roots 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090323040108/http://www.snafu.com/Snafu/SnafuStory.html to http://www.snafu.com/Snafu/SnafuStory.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The German article is way better. HelgeHan (talk) 04:58, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Machine translation?