(sna-FOO)

Means: A mess, a screwup, a situation that's gone sideways.

Etymology: U.S. military slang from World War II, around 1941. It's an acronym: Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. The newspapers printed "fouled." The soldiers did not say "fouled." It was such a hit that it spawned a family, including FUBAR, which is the same idea, just beyond all recognition.

"The airline lost my bag, rebooked me through Denver, and gave my seat away. Standard snafu."

Rococo took over France in the 1730s under Louis XV: curves everywhere, seashell shapes, gold trim, pastel walls, and almost nothing symmetrical. You see it best in furniture, like a chest of drawers with swollen curved fronts, legs that bow out, and gilded bronze handles that look like they're dripping. The name was an insult invented by later critics who thought it was all too much, from rocaille, the shell-and-pebble work in fancy garden grottoes. In Munich, the Amalienburg hunting lodge has a hall of mirrors built in the 1730s that's about as Rococo as a room gets.

What everybody calls a keg is officially a half barrel. A U.S. beer barrel is 31 gallons, so the full-size keg holds 15.5 gallons, which is 1,984 ounces, or about 165 twelve-ounce beers. The smaller pony keg is a quarter barrel, about 82 beers. Next time somebody says one keg is plenty for forty guys, you can do the math for him.

Guy sits down at the bar and says, "Pour me a whiskey before the trouble starts."

Bartender pours it. He knocks it back. "Another one before the trouble starts."

Four whiskeys later, the bartender finally asks, "So when's this trouble supposed to start?"

"Right about now. I don't have any money."

Rearrange the letters of ASTRONOMER into a two-word phrase that describes exactly what an astronomer does.

Answer in tomorrow's issue.