people from stockholm call everything that's outside of the city spenaten, "the spinach".
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
That's nicer than the people of Antwerp, who call the rest of Flanders a parking lot
There’s also tjotahejti, which is a spin on Otaheiti, an older name for Tahiti.
In Romanian it's „unde și-a înțărcat dracul copiii” which means "where the Devil weaned his children".
Portuguese "onde Judas perdeu as botas". where Judas lost his boots.
If you go there, pls bring the boots.
Romanian
dracul
That sounds so stereotypical lol.
I mean there's a reason Bram Stoker picked the name "Dracula" for his character ya know...
American English has “Buttfuck, Idaho”, possibly substituting more polite names, and/or other equally sparsely populated states. If it’s abroad, it becomes Buttfuckistan or some equivalent.
Not sure about a British equivalent, but I’ve seen “Invernowhere” used in a Scottish context (there’s probably a swearier version this was bowdlerised from), and Dylan Thomas named an imaginary Welsh town Llareggub (read it backwards).
Always heard Bumfuck Egypt, BFE being the more polite way to say it
Here in Texas it's always been BFE, butt-fucking Egypt. Never have I heard Idaho used in this context.
However the context is different, because BFE refers to somewhere far away rather to being in the middle of nowhere
In Dutch we have "Lutjebroek". Problem is, Lutjebroek is also a real village with about 2000 people in it. There's also "Schubbekutteveen" which does not really exists and roughly translates as scaled-cunt-ville.
"Podunk" is a real town in the USA, but people use Podunk to mean any small, unsophisticated town.
Dylan Thomas named an imaginary Welsh town Llareggub (read it backwards).
Perfect! 😆😘👌🏼
In belgian french, we have "Outsiplou-les-Bains-de-Pieds". Made up town name that both sounds funny and too long to actually exist, but the Outsiplou part kind of means "listen if it's raining" in walloon. And "Perpète-les-Oies". Which you could translate to "Far-away Geese", which is plain gibberish but sounds like a lot of real places in France. There's plently of variations but they mostly try to invent a name that sounds like a stereotypical countryside village name.
In Polish we've got "gdzie psy dupami szczekają" or where dogs bark with their assess.
Huh, so in Southern Germany we like to reference Buxtehude as a place that's really far away and probably doesn't exist (even though it is a very real city near Hamburg). ^1
And I just learned that there's also a saying about Buxtehude, that it's the place where dogs bark with their tails. ^2
Apparently, they refer to bells as dogs in their local dialect.
I did also randomly find a reference to Buxtehude being where dogs bark with their ass, in a German text. ^3
So, maybe you guys also just dump on Buxtehude like we do. 🙃
We have a few in Spanish, one of my favourites is "Donde Cristo perdió el mechero": Where Christ lost his lighter.
In Québec, we say "Saint Clin-Clin Des meuh-meuh"; "Saint", because a lot of towns here are named after a Saint, "Clin-Clin" because of another expression "ti-clin" which means some random person, so "Clin-Clin" means a random Saint, and "des meuh-meuh" because a lot of towns here have some kind of suffix like "des Saults", or "de Brandon", so "des meuh-meuh" (like moo-moo) is the sound a cow makes, and I guess it sounds rural or something. Also, when we talk about somewhere very far away, we say "au diable vert" "at the green devil"; not sure about the origin of this expression, though.
I think it's important to also mention Wabush, a very remote town mostly known for being referenced in "chu parké à Wabush", which means "I parked my car in Wabush", thus implying that said parking spot was very bad which resulted in a long walk to the desired destination, often causing one to be late.
In Italian we say we are in culo ai lupi which means in the ass of wolves or at inculandia which translates to in the ass land
In Spain we have "en el quinto pino": in the fifth pine, and "estoy a tomar por saco", which badly translates to "to go get fucked in a bag".
Also, if a bit more vulgar, "el quinto coño" ("the fifth cunt"). And don't forget "donde cristo perdió el mechero/ la chancla" ("where Christ lost his lighter/flip-flop").
That’s literally the first time I heard that hungarian version, that’s not what we use, we use “az isten háta mögött” which is “behind gods back” to refer to places in bumfuck nowhere
In Danish you can say "where the crows turn".
In British English there's:
- arse-end of nowhere
- the sticks
- back of beyond
and probably more
Icelandic has "lengst úti í rassgati" which means as far as you can go to an asshole. There's also the leas common "í langtíburtistan" which is in Far-away-istan
This may be the first post I've ever come across where I wish there was an "Upvote All Comments" button...
These could all be made up for all I know, but they are all very entertaining! 😄
In Slovenia we either use the serbian one or we say Bogu za nogo/hrbtom. Meaning behind god's leg/back.
A Levant arabic way of saying it is "في طيز العقرب" which literally means "in the scorpions ass"
In Scotland, we say 'middleae fucking naewhere' or 'Largs'.
In Hebrew, the closest we have is טיזינבי (tizinabi), which doesn't mean anything in Hebrew but comes from Arabic طيز ٱلنَّبِي where it apparently means "the prophet's butt". TIL.
Since there's surprisingly no Russian here yet, here are a few I know (some are probably regional):
- Где раки зимуют [Gde raki zimuyut] - "where crayfish spend their winter"
- У чёрта на куличиках [U chyorta na kulichikah] - "on the devil's little Easter breads" (there's also a version "on the devil's horns")
- За тридевять земель [Za tridevyat zemel] - "beyond threenine (i.e. 27) lands" feels somewhat fairytale/archaic, haven't heard anyone use it unironically
- В жопе мира [V zhope mira] - "in the ass of the world"
- Зажопье [Zazhopye] - a made up placename roughly meaning "beyond ass", evocative of many toponyms which start with the same prefix (e.g. Замосковоречье [Zamoskvorechye] - "beyond river Moscow")
- Мухосранск [Mukhosransk] - made-up town name, roughly translatable as "where flies shit"
- Ухрюпинск [Ukhryupinsk] - corrupted name of the town of Uryupinsk, probably on account of it being far away from my birthplace
- Подзатворожинск [Podzatvorozhinsk] - made-up town name, roughly "[place which] started to turn into cottage cheese" or "under the [place] beyond cottage cheese" or some combination of the two
But honestly the most likely phrase I'd use in an informal context is a boring чёрт знает где [chyort znayet gde] - "devil knows where"
Подзатворожинск [Podzatvorozhinsk]
"Under-over-cottage-cheese-ton"
In French: trou du cul du monde, or World's asshole.
could also be at the fictional town "triffouilli-les-oies".. litteraly at "fondling-the-geeses"
In Lithuanian we have these:
- Dievo užmirštame kampelyje - In the little corner God forgot about (typically meaning a beautiful place)
- Giliame užkampyje - Somewhere deep, behind the corner
- Pasaulio pakrašty - At the end of the the world
Italian: "in culo al mondo"/"in culo ai lupi" (in the butt of the world/in the butt of wolves)
Meanwhile in Chile: "A la conchade su madre" (Literally: "Towards your mother's c**t")
In New Zealand we say 'in Waikikamukau' (pronounced "Why kick a moo cow") because it's juuuuust enough like actual place names here that people don't instantly pick up on the alternate meaning.
I always liked “east jabip” and “east jahunga” (sometimes jahunga road or Jahungaville)
Dogpatch is an interesting one bc I’ve heard it used to mean “middle of nowhere” and also “where poor people/hillbillies live”. It’s got history too since Lil Abner comics were set in Dogpatch, and there’s a San Francisco neighborhood of that name.
I guess closest turkish version I ever seen used is "ebenin götünde," which translates to "in your midwife's butt."
UK does have the idiom "bumfuck, nowhere" a fictional town in the fictional county of nowhere
In Québec we also use au milieu de nulle part. But abetter option is Saint-Glin-glin des meuh-meuh. Saint-ding-dong on the moo-moo.
I find it funny that the title is "cultural differences", but the content is actually showing how all these cultures needed someway to describe being in the middle of nowhere.
In my hometown we usually say "a Puttemburgo" (literally "Whoreburg") or "in culo ai lupi" ("up the wolves' arsehole") or "a Tron di Dio" ("on God's throne").
In Greek it is: στου διαόλου τη μάνα, which means "at the Devil's mom"