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FUBAR is an acronym that commonly means "Fucked Up Beyond All Repair", "Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition," (the recognition version is most commonly used to describe a situation). See below for other variations. It is attested in the United States Army and other military settings, as well as civilian environments. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Look up FUBAR in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. ... The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ...

Variations

The phrase is sometimes bowdlerized: "Fucked" replaced with "Fouled." Thomas Bowdler (July 11, 1754 – February 24, 1825), an English physician, who published The Family Shakespeare, is best known as the source of the eponym bowdlerize (or bowdlerise[1]), the process of expurgation, censorship by removal, of material thought to be unacceptable to the intended audience, especially children or religious...

Depending on situation or habitat, "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.

FUBAR has sometimes been used in software development in the almost opposite sense: "Fucked Up But All Right," meaning that the system design is fatally flawed, but 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] Others say 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. SNAFU is an acronym meaning things are in a mess – as usual. The most commonly accepted rendering is Situation Normal: All Fucked Up, or, in polite use, Situation Normal: All Fouled Up. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... A classic UK red telephone box. ...

The Oxford English Dictionary currently lists Yank magazine (1944, 7 Jan. p. 8) as its earliest citation: "The FUBAR Squadron... FUBAR? It means ‘Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition’."

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] Computer related humor is a branch of humor that nerds and geeks might find amusing but other people might not understand. ... Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ... VAX is a 32-bit computing architecture that supports an orthogonal instruction set (machine language) and virtual addressing (i. ... The Unibus was the earliest of several bus technologies used with PDP-11 and early VAX systems manufactured by the Digital Equipment Corporation of Maynard, Massachusetts. ...

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]

Related usage

One of the most popular hacker/demo groups on the Commodore 64 scene in the mid 1980s was FBR – "Fucked Beyond Repair."^{[citation needed]} The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes itself on producing demos, non-interactive audio-visual presentations, which are run real-time on a computer. ... C-64 redirects here. ... The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ...

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/demolition device that resembles a cross between a heavy pipe wrench and a pry bar, and should be seen for better understanding.

Geologists sometime refer to rocks that have been heavily metamorphized or otherwise altered beyond recognition as fubarite. Fubarite is an informal name and in-joke in geology for any rock that has been severely brecciated and metamorphosed to a point that it is difficult or impossible to determine its origin [1] [2] [3] [4]. The name is a word play with the acronym FUBAR for fucked up...

Medicine

FUBAR BUNDY, Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet is a variant of the emergency department (slang) expression "TF Bundy" (Totally Fucked...), an alternative to John Doe used to describe road traffic accident or burn victims with negligible chance of survival.^{[citation needed]} The emergency department (ED), sometimes termed the emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW), accident & emergency (A&E) department or casualty department is a hospital or primary care department that provides initial treatment to patients with a broad spectrum of illnesses and injuries, some of which may be life-threatening and... The name John Doe is generally used in the United States as a placeholder name for a male party in a legal action or legal discussion whose true identity is unknown. ...

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.) Artists conception of the Mars Climate Orbiter Mars Climate Orbiter during tests The Mars Climate Orbiter (formerly the Mars Surveyor 98 Orbiter) was one of two spacecraft in the Mars Surveyor 98 program, the other being the Mars Polar Lander (formerly the Mars Surveyor 98 Lander). ...

Software Engineering

When software engineers discuss design issues or class structures within an application, "foo" and "bar" are used as generic subroutine names. However, this is unlikely to be related to FUBAR, aside from phonetically. See Foobar. For other uses, see Foobar (disambiguation). ...

Literature

• Nkrumah Fubar is the name of the narrator in the first few pages of the "Illuminatus Trilogy" (1975) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
• "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

23 The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. ... Robert Joseph Shea (1933 - March 10, 1994) was the co-author (with Robert Anton Wilson) of The Illuminatus! Trilogy. ... Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson or RAW (January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was a prolific American novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychologist, futurologist, anarchist, and conspiracy theory researcher. ... Stephen Baxter (born in Liverpool, 13 November 1957) is a British hard science fiction author. ... Leon Uris (August 3, 1924 - June 21, 2003) was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. ...

Film and television

• 2002 a full feature film was made called FUBAR; starring Terry, Deaner, Ferrel, Matt Reed, Sam Inglis and Ryland Bowles. Bowles plays a precariously gay character whose background is loosely related to that of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde.
• 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 is explained towards the end of the film when Mellish is giving Upham a briefing for the final battle as Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
• 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.
• The acronym was used at the end of a Squidbillies episode when Early Cuyler was talking with Squid Jesus.
• 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 Public Broadcasting Service series "The War" (airing in late September 2007) is titled "FUBAR".
• The January 7th episode of The Colbert Report featured host Stephen Colbert using this word in relation to the writer's strike.
• In the fourth episode, second season of Dexter (TV series), a former special ops member has a ship named the S.S. Fubar.
• The term was used in "The Marines" episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force when Meatwad unwittingly enlists the Aqua Teens into the Marine Corps.
• FUBAR is also the resident DJ at the Syndicate superclub blackpool, England.

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon[1] (born March 22, 1976) is an Academy Award-winning American actress. ... Legally Blonde is a 2001 comedy film starring Reese Witherspoon, produced by Marc E. Platt for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios and directed by Robert Luketic. ... Isadore Friz Freleng (August 21, 1906[1]–May 26, 1995) was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. ... Storyboard Image Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional cartoon shorts produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. The character was created by director Frank Capra, chairman of the U.S. Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, and some... For articles with similar titles, see Over the top (disambiguation). ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ... For the type of ammunition, see Full metal jacket bullet. ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ... Tango & Cash is a 1989 American movie starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. ... Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 Academy-Award-winning film set in World War II, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Mockumentary (also known as a pseudo-documentary)[1], a portmanteau of mock and documentary, is a film and TV genre, or a single work of the genre. ... Dark Angel is an American cyberpunk science fiction television program, created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee, which ran from 2000 to 2002 on the FOX network. ... This article is about all the media that use the name Battlestar Galactica. ... A Day in the Life is the fifteenth episode of the third season from the science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica. ... 28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film, and sequel to the 2002 film 28 Days Later. ... Squidbillies is an animated television series produced by Williams Street Studios for the Adult Swim programming block of Cartoon Network. ... NCIS is an American police procedural television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. ... Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American director and producer of documentary films known for his style of making use of original prints and photographs. ... PBS redirects here. ... The War is a 2007 World War II documentary produced by American filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, narrated by Keith David and others. ... For the Hanna-Barbera animated series, see Dexters Laboratory. ... For the movie, see Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. ... Meatwad is a fictional character in the animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force. ...

Video games

• Foobar vs the D.E.A. - Mac Game (1995)
• Outcast by Infogrames (1999), quote by lead character Cutter Slade: "I think this places this mission just south of FUBAR!"
• Half-Life: Opposing Force by Gearbox Software and Valve Corporation (1999), quote from fellow Marines: "This mission is way beyond FUBAR!"
• Front Mission 3by Square Co. (2000), used as a password for a USN military website.
• Stronghold by Firefly Studios (2001), Clicking on a drunk man from an inn a number of times he will say his occupation is "FUBAR!".
• Halo: Combat Evolved by Bungie Studios (2001), quote by Sergeant Johnson upon death of the player: "We are FUBAR!", or by marines upon death of the player: "We are so totally FUBAR!".
• Freedom Fighters by IO Interactive (2003), After his boat is partially sunk, a resistance soldier comments to the player, "This whole operation is FUBAR, may as well pack it up and go home!"
• Manhunt by Rockstar Games (2003), Quote by one of the Cerberus guards if they see another Cerberus dead, "Ah, Fuck!, he's FUBAR." They also use the military acronym SNAFU.
• Full Spectrum Warrior by Pandemic (2004), has a quote by a Jewish Philadelphian 'smart-ass' squad member; "If we ain't careful, the whole mission will be FUBAR."
• Destroy All Humans! by Pandemic Studios (2005), if you read a soldier's mind they will sometimes use the term FUBAR.
• Quake 4 by Raven Software (2005), quote by Lt. Voss: "This situation is looking seriously FUBAR-ED!"
• Gears of War by Epic Games (2006), Quote by Damon Baird: "Situation's FUBAR here" while he and Augustus Cole defend a separate area of the Fenix estate than the player. Also quoted by Marcus Fenix whilst Jack (the robot) is opening a door.
• Armed Assault by Bohemia Interactive (2007) at the beginning of the game one of the soldiers remarks that the fans in the armoured transport vehicle are FUBAR.
• Just Cause by Avalanche Studios (2006) Rico Rodriguez (the player) will occasionally remark that "This has all gone FUBAR" in a dangerous situation.
• Suikoden 3 by Konami has a playable character named Fubar, a griffon that accompanies one of the main characters
• Grand Theft Auto by Rockstar Games, has some hijackable cars equipped with the FUBAR security system, making the car explode in 3 seconds.
• Final Fantasy XII has an enemy named the "Foobar," a particularly strong Flan variant composed of animated blood and filth.
• World of Warcraft "Fubar" is the name of a popular add-on for the MMORPG.
• Crysis by Electronic Arts (2007) quote by player's team leader Prophet: "The situation's FUBAR"

Outcast is an action-adventure computer game by Belgian developer Appeal, released in 1999 by publisher Infogrames. ... Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA) is an international holding company headquartered in Lyon, France. ... Opposing Force is the critically acclaimed first expansion pack for the popular first-person shooter Half-Life, developed by Gearbox Software and released by Valve Software on October 31, 1999. ... Gearbox Software, LLC is a video game developer founded by Randy Pitchford, Brian Martel, Stephen Bahl, Landon Montgomery, and Rob Heironimus in January 1999. ... Valve Corporation is an American video game developer based in Bellevue, Washington, USA, made famous by its first product, Half-Life, which was released in November 1998. ... Front Mission 3 is a game for the PlayStation, created by Square Co. ... Square Company, Limited ) was a Japanese video game company founded in September of 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi. ... Firefly Studios is a computer game developer. ... Halo: Combat Evolved, or simply Halo, is a video game in the first-person shooter (FPS) genre, created by the Microsoft-owned Bungie Studios. ... Bungie is an American video game developer founded in May 1991 under the name Bungie Software Products Corporation (more popularly shortened to Bungie Software) by two undergraduate students at the University of Chicago, Alex Seropian and Jason Jones. ... Freedom Fighters is a game in which you play the role of Christopher Stone, a plumber, who has to stop the Red Army from taking control of the United States. ... IO Interactive is a Danish computer game developer currently owned by Eidos Interactive. ... This article is about the 2003 Rockstar game; for the two DOS adventure games by Sierra Online please see Manhunter: New York and Manhunter 2: San Francisco. ... The Rockstar Games logo. ... SNAFU is an acronym meaning things are in a mess – as usual. The most commonly accepted rendering is Situation Normal: All Fucked Up, or, in polite use, Situation Normal: All Fouled Up. ... Full Spectrum Warrior is a video game classified as a real-time tactics action/war game. ... For other uses, see Pandemic (disambiguation). ... Destroy All Humans! is a video game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by THQ. It was released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems on June 21, 2005. ... Pandemic Studios is a video game developer notable for creating destructable environments that is based in Los Angeles, California and Brisbane, Australia. ... Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake FPS computer games. ... Raven Software is a computer game software developer based in Madison, Wisconsin. ... Gears of War is a tactical third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games (the creators of the Unreal series) using Unreal Engine 3. ... Epic Games, also known as Epic and formerly as Epic MegaGames, is a computer game development company based in Cary, North Carolina, United States. ... Damon Baird Is a fictional character in the popular Xbox 360 game Gears of war. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into List of Gears of War characters & adversaries. ... Armed Assault (ArmA) is a computer game by Bohemia Interactive (BI). ... Bohemia Interactive Studio (BIS) is an independent computer and console game developer based in Prague, the Czech Republic. ... Just Cause was released on September 22, 2006 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 2 platforms in Europe. ... Avalanche Studios is a video game developer based in Stockholm, Sweden, and makers of Just Cause, released September 2006 for the Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation 2 and PC. External links Official site: http://www. ... Suikoden III (Japanese: 幻想水滸伝, ) is the sequel to Konamis PlayStation RPG Suikoden. ... Grand Theft Auto may refer to Motor vehicle theft, a crime in many jurisdictions Grand Theft Auto (film), a film directed by Ron Howard Grand Theft Auto (series), a computer and video game series Grand Theft Auto (video game), the first game in this series Category: ... Final Fantasy XII ) is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console, and the twelfth installment in the Final Fantasy video game series. ... World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the fourth game in the Warcraft series, excluding expansion packs and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. ... For the particle accelerator, see CRYSIS. Crysis is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by German video game developer Crytek and published by Electronic Arts, and is the first game of a planned trilogy. ... Electronic Arts (EA) (NASDAQ: ERTS) is an American developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of computer and video games. ...

Related acronyms

There are a number of slang army acronyms that are related to FUBAR. A somewhat standard group includes: The United States Army produces its own initialisms and acronyms, which often come to have meaning beyond their bare expansions. ...

• 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

This list contains acronyms, initialisms, and pseudo-blends that begin with the letter B. An acronym is an abbreviation pronounced as a series of constituent letters; an initialism is an abbreviation whose pronunciation is wholly or partly the names of constituent letters; and a pseudo-blend is an abbreviation whose... The U.S. Army, like any bureaucratic organization, produces its own acronyms, which often come to have meaning beyond their bare expansions. ... SNAFU is an acronym meaning things are in a mess – as usual. The most commonly accepted rendering is Situation Normal: All Fucked Up, or, in polite use, Situation Normal: All Fouled Up. ... SNAFU is an acronym meaning things are in a mess - as normal. ...

Unofficial related acronyms

• TOFUED- Too Outrageously Fucked Up to Even Discuss

To keep with the changing times, there is a need to reevaluate whether or not FUBAR is “good enough to represent the worst situation.” FUBAR theoretically should be a temporary state; however, there are increasing numbers of FUBAR cases that have the hallmarks of permanence. What do we call that state of permanence? TOFUED fills this gap and provides observers with a final descriptive acronym that sits just above death.

See also

• List of U.S. Army acronyms and expressions
• foobar, a derivative placeholder used in computer programs
• List of medical abbreviations

The United States Army produces its own initialisms and acronyms, which often come to have meaning beyond their bare expansions. ... For other uses, see Foobar (disambiguation). ... This is a partial list of medical acronyms and abbreviations, both formal and informal. ...

References

To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

External links

• Acronym Finder's FUBAR entry