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FUBAR

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For other uses, see FUBAR (disambiguation).
Look up FUBAR in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

FUBAR is an acronym that commonly means "Fucked Up Beyond All Repair" or "Fucked Up Beyond Any Recognition"; see below for other variations. It is attested in the United States Army and other military settings, as well as civilian environments.

Variations

For purposes of euphemism, "Fucked" is sometimes replaced with "Fouled."

Depending on situation or habit, "all" can be replaced with "any," and "repair" can be replaced with either "redemption," "recognition," "rescue," "reality," "recovery," "relief," or "reason." The concept is generally the same regardless of the exact wording used. Video gamers (Especially in First-person shooter games) also replace "Fucked" with "Fragged" to describe fragging (Frag (video gaming)) of the opponent in an extreme circumstances. FUBAR has also commonly been interpreted, especially in a computer science context, as "Fucked up but all right," meaning that the system design is fatally flawed, but (as implemented) works anyway.

Etymology

Electronics engineers say that SNAFU and FUBAR were used before World War II by repairmen sent out to repair phone booths. They had to report the situation at arrival to the scene, often on a very bad line, so they developed these acronyms to make themselves understood. [1] The actual origin of the word was developed in the 1960s, as fire departments across the US began to use the line. As stated below, Stanley makes a FUBAR tool and most departments use some form of the tool. It is commonly used for forcible entry and overhauling of burned structures.

FUBAR also appears, in an apparent example of geek humor, as the acronym for the Failed UniBus Address Register in the Digital Equipment Corporation VAX-11/780 Unibus adapter (DW780). [2]

"Foo" appeared in a 1938 Warner Bros. Daffy Duck cartoon and the comic strip Smokey Stover, and bar was a popular English word long before that. FUBAR may have been influenced by the German word furchtbar, meaning terrible. It is pronounced with a soft cht, and probably made the transition during World War II. [3]

One of the most popular hacker/demo groups on the Commodore 64 scene in the mid 1980s was FBR – "Fucked Beyond Repair."

Podshow has FUBAR Fridays. At 5 o'clock, all the workers stop what they are doing, hang up all the phones, and have an end of the week party.

There is a tool made by Stanley tools named the FUBar, internally a quasi-acronym for Functional Utility Bar. This tool is a multi-function small disassembly device, and should be seen for a better explanation.

Geologists sometime refer to rocks that have been heavily metamorphized or otherwise altered beyond recognition as fubarite.

Physics and mathematics

In physics and mathematics, the "fubar" is an imaginary unit of measure. The primary use of the fubar is to illustrate and demonstrate the complications and errors that often arise when metric and Imperial units are mixed (as, for instance, in the case of the Mars Climate Orbiter.)

Software Engineering

When software engineers discuss design issues or class structures within an application, "foo" and "bar" are used as generic subroutine names.

Literature

  • "The Fubar Suit" (1997) is the title of a science fiction short story by Stephen Baxter.
  • "Battle Cry," (1953) by Leon Uris. 'Fubar' appears in this somewhat autobiographical novel about the Marines on Tarawa and Guadalcanal during World War II.
  • "F*U*B*A*R" (2006) title of book by Sam Seder and Stephen Sherrill. Subtitled America's Right-wing Nightmare

Film and television

  • 2002 a full feature film was made called FUBAR; starring Terry, Deaner, Ferrel, Matt Reed, Sam Inglis, Ryland Bowles
  • In the 1944 U.S. Army animated short The Three Brothers (directed by Friz Freleng), a character named Fubar is a brother of Private Snafu and Tarfu.
  • The term was on the t-shirt of the arm wrestler with the grizzly hair and beard in the movie Over the Top (1987))
  • The term was used frequently in "Full Metal Jacket" (1987).
  • The term was used and explained in the movie Tango and Cash (1989).
  • In Saving Private Ryan (1998) the term is used by the soldiers in Captain Miller's squad. Corporal Upham, their interpreter, is unfamiliar with it and the others jokingly tell him it's German. He is later shown looking in his German dictionary and remarking: "Hey, I looked up FUBAR in the German dictionary and there's no FUBAR in there."
  • FUBAR: The Movie is also the title of a 2002 Canadian mockumentary.
  • In the Dark Angel television series, Joshua the dog frequently used it to describe complicated situations.
  • In Battlestar Galactica Series 3 Ep 15 A Day in the Life Chief Tyrol uses FUBAR, possibly meaning "Fracked Up Beyond All Repair."
  • In 28 Weeks Later, the acronym was used to describe the situation of the outbreak of the virus.
  • In the television series NCIS Kate and Tony refer to it and oddly enough well known geekophile Tim has no idea what it means.
  • Episode Five of the Ken Burns PBS series "The War" (airing in late September 2007) is titled "FUBAR".

Song

  • Song "F.U.B.A.R." in Cyco Miko 's 1996 Epic Records hardcore punk "Lost My Brain! (Once Again)"

Real-world usage

  • Oxford Brookes (University) Students' Union (UK)'s Wednesday night party is called FUBAR
  • A bar/dance club in Waterloo, Canada is called FUBAR. Located at the University Plaza between University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.
  • Chester University, Warrington Campus's (UK) Student Union bar is called the FuBar (Friendly Union Bar)
  • Auckland, New Zealand has a nightclub called "FuBar" located on Queen Street.
  • A pub in Saint-Germain (Paris, France) is called "Fubar". Located "5, rue Saint Sulpice" in the 6th arrondissement.
  • The University of Michigan School of Engineering has a snack bar called the "foo bar" located in the Computer Science Engineering building.
  • Beirut, Lebanon had a nightclub called Fubar, in the Sodeco district. It was THE place to be at some time in the early 2000s
  • The Explorer group for Wolverhampton South District is known as FUBAR (Fairly Unusual But Alright Really).
  • A bar/club in Southport, England is named FUBAR.

Video games

There are a number of slang army acronyms that are related to FUBAR. A somewhat standard group includes:

  • BOHICA - Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
  • JANFU - Joint Army/Navy Fuck-Up
  • SNAFU - Situation Normal: All Fucked Up
  • TARFU - Things Are Really Fucked Up

Others include the following:[citation needed]

  • BEIFT - Behold, Every Indicator Forebodes Trouble; pronounced "beefed"
  • CF - Cluster F
  • CHAOS - Chief Has Arrived On Scene
  • FIGMO—Fuck It. Got My Orders.
  • FISHDO - Fuck It, Shit Happens, Drive On
  • FUGAZI - Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In; refers to an out-of-control situation such as a chaotic jungle-warfare combat environment.
  • FUBB - Fucked Up Beyond Belief
  • FUBER - Fucked Up Beyond Economic Repair
  • FUMTU - Fucked Up More Than Usual
  • FUNDY - Fucked Up, Not Dead Yet; on British medical charts[4]
  • GFU - General Fuck Up
  • GMFU - Grand/General Military Fuck Up (see Sloan Ranger's Handbook)
  • JAAFU or JAAFFU - Joint Army-Air Force Fuck-Up; the use of JANFU combined with a radical increase in joint-forces operations since 1989, has led to the rare but increasing use of JAAFU/JAAFFU
  • MOAFU - Mother Of All Fuck Ups
  • MFWIC - Mother Fucker What's In Charge, (pronounced "miff-wick"), a humorous, perhaps military-derived, acronym to describe a leader
  • MUBAR - Mash Up Beyond All Recognition or Macked Up Beyond All Recognition
  • NOMFIC - Number One Mother-Fucker in Charge
  • REMF - Rear Echelon Mother Fucker
  • SAMFU - Self Adjusting Military Fuck Up
  • SAPFU - Surpasses All Previous Fuck Ups
  • SMUBAR - Semi Mash Up Beyond All Recognition
  • SUSFU - Situation Unchanged: Still Fucked Up
  • TOFU - Things Ordinary: Fucked Up
  • TUIFU - The Ultimate In Fuck Ups
  • UMOP - Ugliest Mother-Fucker On Post

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Health Science Institute", [1]
  2. ^ "VAX Hardware Handbook," page 373. Digital Equipment Corporation, 1980.
  3. ^ Network Working Group. RFC 3092 - Etymology of "Foo". 1 April 2001. [Note: despite April Fool's Day release, appears to contain reasonable information.]
  4. ^ "The Origins and Common Usage of British Swear-Words". Web Article BBC, 2002.
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