If you apply a force of one pound pound over a distance of 1 foot, you've done one foot pound of work.
If you apply a force of one pound on a 1 foot lever arm, you apply one foot pound of torque.
Same units, different concept (energy vs torque). If both are being used in a single context, it is common to call one a pound foot and the other a foot pound, but I don't think there is any real standard about which is torque and which is work. I tend to use pound foot to mean torque and foot pound to mean energy.
In SI, the unit of energy is the Joule, and the unit of torque is the Newton meter. But a force of 1 Newton applied over a distance of 1 meter is 1 Joule of work.
An alternative argument: energy is force (dot) distance, torque is force (cross) distance. The dot product and the cross product are different things, so while both are pound (something) feet, since we don't actually say the (something), the difference is lost in the word foot pound (and equally lost in Newton meter), but they really are different units because of the (something) that is lost.
-Jonathan
