TABU

TABU is a British Army acronym which dates from around World War II. It stands for Typical Army Balls Up and is used in a similar way and in the same context as the American SNAFU. It describes the things that shouldn’t go wrong but invariably do do. Over the course of time, however, the meaning changed, notably during the Korean War. During this conflict the Americans were in charge of logistics for all allied troops and were told to ensure that American troops were supplied before their allies. What was meant by this was that American troops should have ammunition and essentials before these were supplied to their allies. In fact what happened was that the STRAC REMFS whose duty this was decided it was more important to supply American troops with Coca Cola that the allies with ammunition. In this case TABU came to mean Typical American Balls Up.