A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from August 18, 2019
FIGMO (Forget It, Got My Orders)

“FIGMO” is an acronym that stands for “Fuck, I Got My Orders” or “Forget/Fuck It, Got My Orders.” The expression was most popular in the 1950s and 1960s, although it originated earlier than this.
   
“The word is ‘FIGMO.’ A family newspaper translation of the same would be ‘Fade; I got my orders’” was printed in the Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer on September 1, 1944.
 
   
Wiktionary: FIGMO
Etymology
Initialism. The forget it usage is likely a retronym, coined to avoid using the profanity fuck.
Phrase
FIGMO

1. (military, slang, vulgar) Acronym of fuck it, got my orders.
2. (military, slang, euphemistic) Acronym of forget it, got my orders.
 
1 September 1944, Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer, “Washington Background” by Inquirer Washington Bureau Staff, pg. 12, col. 1:
By now, unless you’ve been living in a cave since 1939, you are familiar with “SNAFU,” the Army’s expression meaning “situation normal, all fouled up,” and “JANFU,” which is translated as “joint Army-Navy foul-up,” as well as several variations on this.
 
Well, it seems that the Marines and the soldiers in the Western Pacific have come up with a new one, which instead of describing a situation is used to rebuff officious corporals and possibly even sergeants. The word is “FIGMO.”
 
A family newspaper translation of the same would be “Fade; I got my orders.”
   
28 October 1955, Omaha (NE) World-Herald magazine sec., “Cryptic Language Comes From Frozen North” by Wayne Thomis, pg. 25G, col. 1:
The fubar (fouled up beyond all recovery) and snafu (situation normal, all fouled up) of World War II are forgotten. The Thule equivalents today are “figmo” (phooey to you Bud, I’ve got my orders) and “iccl” (I couldn’t care less).
 
25 June 1967, The Sun (Baltimore, MD), “FIGMO Becomes a GI Way of Life,” pg. 6, col. 4:
That is the FIGMO phase.
 
FIGMO, in its printable sense, stands for Farewell I’ve Got My Orders (to leave), and “short timer” charts began appearing, in offices, in lockers, even in helmets.
     
Google Books
Between Battles
By James D. Houston
New York, NY: Dial Press
1968
Pg. 212:
Once he knows, he goes fuigmo — Fuck U, I Got My Orders. At the PX he buys a fuigmo button, and his work slacks off.
   
Google Books
More There I Was…
By Bob Stevens
Fallbrook, CA: Aero Publishers: Distributed by the Village Press
1974
Pg. 123:
FIGMO (acronym) Quaint old Anglo-Saxon expression used by ‘short-timers” to tell the neophytes what to do. Stands for “____, I Got My Orders.” (no polite form)
 
urban Dictionary
FIGMO
Standard Military slang, “Fuck it, got my orders”. usually used when you’re short on any assignment, or End of Service, (Discharge). Most often, when you get a shit detail, or flak from a Supervisor.
Boss- “Get yer ass out there and police the parade grounds!”
You- (Walking away) FIGMO

#fuck it#got my orders#military#air force#usaf
by Steve da’ Goof November 14, 2007
 
Google Books
The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English (Second Edition)
Edited by Tom Dalzell
New York, NY: Routledge
2018
Pg. 2000:
figmo, fuigmo noun
fuck it, got my orders; fuck you I got my orders US 1957
Korean and then Vietnam war usage. Descriptive of a somewhat defiant attitude.
The sanitized version is FIGMOH: “finally I got my orders home”.

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityGovernment/Law/Military/Religion /Health • Sunday, August 18, 2019 • Permalink


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