Snafu [Slight antedating, 15 June 1941]

[Shapiro, Fred]

Bonnie,

I believe that Barry Popik posted the 15 July 1941 citation here in 2002.

Fred



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Bonnie Taylor-Blake [b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2013 7:51 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Snafu [Slight antedating, 15 June 1941]

I *think* that Fred had last placed "snafu" to 27 July 1941 (see link,
below).  If that's right, here's a very slightly earlier sighting.
(And if that was wrong, I'm sorry, Fred.)

-- Bonnie

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Following is a glossary of some of the terms used by troops on this reservation:

"Snafu," means "situation normal, all fuddled up."

[From Howard Needham's "Slanguage: Army Camps Developing a
Dictionary," The San Francisco Chronicle, 15 June 1941, p. 5.
Needham, a staff writer for the Chronicle, filed his report from
Hunter Liggett Reservation, southern Monterey County, California the
previous day.  He attributed a crop of expressions new to Hunter
Liggett to some 35,000 troops who had arrived from Fort Lewis,
Washington.]

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Fred's earlier contribution,
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0608D&L=ADS-L&P=R2709

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