Make Your Point > Archived Issues > SNAFU

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pronounce SNAFU: Say it "snaff OO." Or, if you prefer, "SNAFF oo." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: Call me easily amused, but the word snafu, by itself, sends me into fits of giggles. The same goes for kerfuffle and Brobdingnagian--could you define both? definition: This word was born in the US military, around 1941. It started out as an acronym, SNAFU, meaning "Situation Normal: All Fouled Up." ("Fouled" is the clean version!) So, "snafu" first suggested that "things are going really badly, but that's normal, and oh well, that's always how it is." Today, the meaning is a bit different. A snafu is a mix-up, a mess-up, a mistake, or a state of confusion. grammatical bits: Part of speech: It's usually a noun, the countable kind: "They ran into a snafu." Other common forms: Just the plural, "snafus." how to use it: To strike a funny tone, refer to some error, mistake, or messy situation as a snafu. When you do, you're implying that the mistake or the resulting mess is funny, excusable, or just a little troubling. ("Snafu" is the wrong word for serious or deadly errors, unless you're being sarcastic.) Add an adjective, if you like: "that ongoing snafu," "the novel's logistical snafus" (New York Times), "a dinner-table snafu" (The Verge), "an underwear snafu" (Fox News). examples: "NBC News did suffer a few technical snafus, as the video feed briefly went to black several times over the course of the telecast."    — Stephen Battaglio, Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2019 "Think of the snafu in the halls, every time they changed classes. It'd take half an hour to get everybody back and forth from one floor to another."    — H. Beam Piper, Omnilingual, 1957 has this page helped you understand "snafu"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "snafu" without saying "blooper" or "blunder." try it out: Private Snafu is the main character in a series of instructional films from World War II. He messes up a lot, violating protocols, spreading diseases, and revealing military secrets. A short story published in 1959 alludes to this Private Snafu: "But, general," the captain was protesting, "that man is the company snafu. He means well but he was designed by nature to foul things up." "I won't buy that, captain," the general said forcefully. "If a man has the right attitude and still doesn't measure up then it's the fault of the people who are training him." Talk about someone you know who might get accused of being the company snafu or the classroom snafu. Do you think this person's constant mistakes are their own fault, or the fault of their trainers, teachers, or managers? If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game this month is "Subject Line Crosswords." We'll revisit some of the email subject lines from 2019 issues, using them as a tool for recall. Each day this month, see if you can complete the mini-crossword with words we studied last year. If you need extra clues, look below the puzzle to view definitions and parts of speech. And I'll share the answers in the following issue. Enjoy! From the previous issue: Extra clues: ACROSS 1. adjective meaning "out of place in time, either behind the times or inappropriately futuristic" 3. adjective meaning "colorful, cartoonish, big-budget, fanciful, unrealistic, goody-goody, squeaky-clean, oversimplified, and/or romanticized" DOWN 2. adjective meaning "sweet, teeny-tiny, or overly adorable--often in an annoying or insincere way" Answers: If you like, you can review the words anachronistic, Disneyesque, and twee. Try this today:  Extra clues: ACROSS 2. adjective meaning "frosty, coated in frost, or coated in something that reminds you of frost" 3. verb meaning "to make something even worse than it already was" DOWN 1. adjective meaning "stubborn in a mean, hard way; unmoved by reason or begging" review this word: 1. A near opposite of SNAFU-RIDDLED is A. SHIPSHAPE. B. BLANKETED. C. LOLLYGAGGING. 2. You learn to _____ all kinds of technological snafus, like _____. A. smooth out .. WiFi failures and blue screens of death B. hawk .. a salt shaker that connects to Amazon's Alexa C. automate .. inventing shortcuts and typing without looking 1. A 2. A a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.