[Ads-l] Antedating of "FUBAR"

[Laurence Horn]

I should have checked HDAS.  But 1983 seems very recent. Now we can
antedate it to King's narrator William Davis (1971 or 1972), who definitely
picked it up earlier in Vietnam (along with a monkey on his back). There
is, to be sure, the minor matter of Davis's being a fictional character...

On Sat, Aug 24, 2024 at 10:26 PM Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:

> I'm afraid that I missed this, from previous and the latest edition
> (currently on press, so I can't make further changes). A few weeks ago list
> member Bill Mullins _also_ encountered this expression in the new Stephen
> King collection, and emailed me about it; the earliest example I know of is
> from 1983 in Connie Eble's collections, which Jon Lighter cites in HDAS
> volume I. There's regular evidence thereafter, so it really is unfortunate
> that I didn't get it in.
>
> I _do_ have Bonnie's "PVT. ROGER FUBAR" example, as the earliest evidence
> for _fubar_ though!
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
> On Sat, Aug 24, 2024 at 09:21:49PM -0400, Laurence Horn wrote:
> > This exchange reminds me of a question I had a few days ago that I
> hadn’t gotten around to asking.  I was hoping to locate my copy of Jesse’s
> _The F-Word_ before posting, but it seems to have gone into hiding when I
> changed offices last week. In “The Dreamers”, one of the stories in Stephen
> King’s recently published collection, _You Like It Darker_, the narrator is
> a Vietnam vet who frequent invokes the attitude expressed in the acronym
> FIDO, explained as an acronym for “Fuck It, Drive On”. This can allude to
> the decision to ignore something awful you see along the way, or it can
> apply more generally, as in the story in question or in this X/Twitter post
> >
> > https://x.com/KingBeauregard/status/1806928653827112984
> >
> > The evidence on the web, e.g. at
> https://www.allacronyms.com/FIDO/Fuck_It-Drive_On, indicates its origin
> (like so many other acronyms) is from the military, but it’s not clear to
> me that it’s “old” in the sense of predating the Vietnam War (which doesn’t
> seem all that long ago to me).  Anyone have more info?
> >
> > LH
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Aug 24, 2024, at 8:49 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Very nice find, Bonnie.
> > >
> > > Fred
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2024 4:37 PM
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Subject: Re: Antedating of "FUBAR"
> > >
> > > FWIW, the pseudonymous "PVT. ROGER FUBAR" authored a letter to the
> > > editor that was published in The Greensboro (NC) Daily News on 20
> > > September 1942 (p. 2). "Private Fubar" claimed to have been writing
> > > from the U.S. Army's Camp Davis (Holly Ridge), North Carolina.
> > >
> > >
> https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A11EA68DA9EC1533C%40GB3NEWS-14342C4F04D625DE%402430623-1429AACA06587E82%4038-1429AACA06587E82?clipid=vagzaobhajkiiwpkvfvtbfczqqdikjlx_ip-10-166-46-121_1724265678637
> <
> https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A11EA68DA9EC1533C%40GB3NEWS-14342C4F04D625DE%402430623-1429AACA06587E82%4038-1429AACA06587E82?clipid=vagzaobhajkiiwpkvfvtbfczqqdikjlx_ip-10-166-46-121_1724265678637
> >
> > >
> > > -- Bonnie
> > >
> > > On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 1:29 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> FUBAR (OED 1944)
> > >>
> > >> 1943 Buffalo Evening News 9 Aug. 1 / 4 (Newspapers.com)  All
> sentinels are required to memorize 11 general orders, listed in the
> Soldiers' Handbook. After each order I will list the FUBAR (framed up
> beyond all recognition) version.
> > >>
> > >> Fred Shapiro
> > >
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