WTF, is an abbreviation or more technically, it’s an initialism. FBI, is a familiar example of an initialism, which is the easier said abbreviation for Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FBI is not an acronym like the “word,” POTUS, which is an abbreviation for President of the United State, and is pronounced “POdus.” We say the letters separately for the initialism, F B I, not as a word that would have to sound something kind of stupid like fibeye, which rhymes with ribeye.
Believe it or not, I did a stint at teaching back in the day. Examples are the stock in trade of many teachers, “do you get it now?”
Back to WTF. Let it be known that a whole bunch of American slang comes from our military. And the majority of it arrived in the early-to-middle part of the last century via the NATO – an acronym BTW – phonetic alphabet, or some say, it more specifically came from the Navy.
You may have used this alphabet when spelling your name over the telephone, to a stranger. I’d like to sometime in my spare time, learn the NATO alphabet because it was devised to be interpretable by persons from every nation. I still stumble over my version of the phonetic alphabet on occasion, usually relying on Nancy for the N in my last name, when the NATO one is a very simple, November. I do use “V like Victor.”
Initialisms have grown like weeds, probably hitting baby boom status in the last few years due to the proliferation of the text message. Texting abbreviations are used for their brevity. Who wants to type out on your phone, “by the way,” when you can shorten it to, BTW?
However, those military abbreviations often have, from my observations, been about screw-ups. Also, to clean up the language used by “officers and gentlemen,” the U.S. Navy created some pretty fancy and funny euphemisms to escape their “cussing like a sailor” image in the mid-twentieth century.
So, about Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, what could it mean? “Where’s the fubar?” Uh oh, that’s an acronym for yet another military screw-up. You may personally have to unravel the puzzle of the word fubar, as this chick does not cuss like a sailor.
SNAFU, is an acronym which has made it into the English language for something that is messed up. Literally it means “Situation Normal: All -messed-Up (you fill in the F-word).” Similarly, SUSFU means “Situation Unchanged Still -messed-Up.” TARFU takes the place of “Totally And Royally -messed-Up.”
Then there are some flat-out funny acronyms like ASRAAM. First say that three times without “cracking” a smile. Even better, say it while looking at a picture of the Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile, and tell me you don’t giggle just a little bit. That one reminds me somewhat of the German word we discovered while driving a rental car along the auto-bahn, AUSFART, meaning EXIT. Yes, you can laugh now.
I surmise that, “forever” we have abbreviated, initialized, and substituted similar sounding words for the “real” cuss word. How else does one express, in polite society, rather pent-up emotions which threaten our sanity? The “merde”-word becomes “sugar,” or in my case, an ode to the 1963 song-reference, “sugar-shack;” “holy-moly” substitutes for “holy-merde;” or “holy cow,” presumably an unpleasant dig at Indian culture. The list goes on, in our efforts to clean up the popular cuss words of the time.
We use some pretty silly substitutes instead of saying “bad words” in front of the children, or in “polite” company. Here are some that I’ve heard: What the heck or H E double hockey sticks, Judas Priest, Dang, Jiminy Cricket, Freakin, and its brother, Friggin, Heavens to Murgatroyd, Dear Gussie, Dagnabbit, Son of a Gun, Heavens to Betsy, Geez Louise, oh for Pete’s Sake, Horse Feathers, For Cryin’ Out Loud, and one I use often, and mean it, Bless Your Heart!
May I take the liberty to have some fun with the WTF initialism? How about WTF, “where’s the faux-pas?” I don’t see my mistake. Where did I go wrong? With this example we get to use a common French word. That’s fun.
“Where’s the fire?” What’s your hurry? This incident isn’t a crisis, it’s just a Monday.
“What the fiddle-faddle?” The stuff that comes out of the mouths of politicians is such nonsense.
“Where’s the fortitude?” One reason for so much divorce is, some people give up too easily. In celebrity circles, they give up too quickly.
“Wait for it, the fumigator” is on the way to disinfect and destroy all the pests that threaten us this year. One of the scary ones is RSV.
“Wisdom trains the funambulators.” Get ready to walk the tightrope of 2024 culture. It threatens to be a crazy one. So, strap on all the wisdom you can muster.
One might judge the content of this particular column as a FONSI, a Finding Of No Significant Impact. At any rate, please have a very pleasant, blessed, and love-filled (VPBLF) 2024.