tango uniform
n.— «It comes with a standard V-6 engine, a new unibody chassis and independent rear suspension, and a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty in case all goes, as they say in the military, tango uniform.» —“Not grand, but good” by Dan Neil Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) Apr. 8, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Matt from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was puzzled when colleagues kept saying someone had stood up at a wedding, indicating that they’d been a member of the wedding party. The expression stood up in that sense is an Americanism going back about two...
If you work in tech support, you might use snarky slang for problems caused by computer users themselves. There’s the acronym PEBCAK, for example, which stands for Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard. And: a lush poem about the sea inspired by...
“Tango” and “Uniform” are the military radio codewords for letters “T” and “U.” The expression is short for T.U., which itself is short for “tits up,” or non-functioning, deceased.
Yes, that’s what my research found, too. However, no dictionary I have includes the expression so it was worth recording here.
The more formal “toes up” is also cited and will never offend those who oppose “taudry” terms like “tits”.
The roots of this go back to the gyroscope in an airplane. Your artificial horizon can only show so much pitch, yaw, roll. When the gyroscope is at the end of its string, the ^^ symbol is shown. This is there the “tits up” comes from. If you are flying so badly that the ^^ symbol is shown, you are in REAL trouble! Take a look at the gyro markings. This goes back 50+ years…