Ahouxf.124
net.general
utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!npois!houxi!houxf!rosin
Thu Feb 11 12:52:33 1982
Re: what's foobar?
alice!rhm is unecessarily discreet in my opinion when presenting the
derivation of foobar.

During the Second World War (yes, a few of us are old enough to remember
it well!) fubar (pronounced"foobar") was coined as a euphemismfor
"fouled up beyond all recognition", where "fouled" is indeed a euphemism
for yet another word.

Fubar is closely related to another term - snafu - which, I think
predated fubar.  snafu means "situation normal, all fouled up"
again allowing substitution for "fouled".