Fu Bar

FuBar is an acronym or a BackroNym for Fouled Up Beyond All ( Repair | Recognition ). Most often it'll have a different f-word in place of 'foul'. It dates back to World War II, possibly earlier - I'm too lazy to chase down its semantic history, but I certainly recall an old neighbor talking about the use of the term in WWII context.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/FUBAR.html

This expression has a cousin, "SNAFU" -- Situation Normal; All F---d Up. The story I heard was that during WWII, sergeants who had more important things to worry about were often given the responsibility of filling out status reports to send back to non-combatant bureaucrats, and they would discharge the task by scrawling "SNAFU" across the form and sending it in.

Very nice poem:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/SNAFU-principle.html

See: FooBar

CategoryAcronym, CategoryIdiom