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)
In South Africa, we say “halfpad tussen Pofadder en Putsonderwater”
Which translates to halfway between Pufadder (named after the snake) and well-without-water town.
Both are real places, with the stereotypical names that already play on the fact that there is very little going on there.
The open stretch between the two with no roads, no farms, no railways.
These days, it does not work in reality as their built the Square Kilometer Array there, as it was probably the quietest place (radio signal wise) in the world where you could build radio telescopes.
German also has a few other interesting ones that refer to actually real places.
- Buxtehude (small town near Hamburg)
- Timbuktu (ancient town in the Sahara)
- Pampa (grassland in agentinia)
The last one makes historical sence since many Germans migrated to that region of south America in the 1800, and then more Germans got replaced in the soviet union and moved there and then many Nazis fled there after the surrender. So its just a synonym for a place very far away. Not sure where the rest come from
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”
Мухосранск [Mukhosransk] - made-up town name, roughly translatable as “where flies shit”
I think that has to be my favourite, but “beyond ass” is a strong contender
In America we also have “fuck-ass nowhere,” “bumble fuck,” and “bum fuck.” And that’s before you get creative and start making shit up.
people from stockholm call everything that’s outside of the city spenaten, “the spinach”.
That’s nicer than the people of Antwerp, who call the rest of Flanders a parking lot
Antwerpen is t stad en de rest is parking.
Parking lots generally have better asphalt
isn’t that pretty accurate for the entire area?
Sure for some parts, but the entire area includes:
Ghent
Bruges
Leuvenpretty shit parking at those first two, i’ll give you that
Strange, if it is all parking I would think there’d be plenty of space ;)
There is, provided your are parking a Bicycle or a canal boat.
you’ve only showed one angle, could be like an ikea parking lot behind the camera or something
There’s also tjotahejti, which is a spin on Otaheiti, an older name for Tahiti.
a local one i like is “Finnpörtimansbo”
Ha! How local is that? I’ve never heard that in my life! Like, one little pub in like, Finspång?
more like three guys in bjurs
We have “the boonies”, referring to “the boondocks” or, um, there was a song. I wanted to fuck with you a little but you are so nice.
Mmmm spinach
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.
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.
In oldworld French, Trifouillis-les-oies is a favourite of mine (it’s a fictional village name, meaning something like… Fiddledy-the-geese).
Saint-glin-glin is for a date, here.Donc, je te rend ton argent, à la Saint-glin-glin,
Exactement! 😂
au milieu de nulle part
Hmm lemme guess… To the place of no parts?
In the middle of no-where
Oh well, for someone who only ever had one year’s classes of a related language (Spanish) over 20 years ago (fuck, I’m so old lol), that’s a pretty good non-assisted guess IMO 😁
No juat a direct translation no where. Nulle is none. And part well i dont know why but we use it as where.
I guess closest turkish version I ever seen used is “ebenin götünde,” which translates to “in your midwife’s butt.”
We have a few in Spanish, one of my favourites is “Donde Cristo perdió el mechero”: Where Christ lost his lighter.
Much better the “a tomar por culo” , translate that
“Buttfuck, Egypt” is my favorite version of this expression.
Similarly, people would say “B.F., Africa”.
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 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.
If its even further away it’s “onde judas desistiu de achar as botas”. Where judas gave up trying to find his boots
Romanian
dracul
That sounds so stereotypical lol.
Hang on, is “Count Dracula” just Romanian for “Lord Devilish”?
The father of Vlad Tepes, or the Impaler, was known as Vlad Dracul. Though it wasn’t because people thought he was a devil but because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon which in Latin is Societas Draconistarum. The word “dracu” in Romanian originates from the Latin “Draco” so the connection was easy. Which means the Dracula in this case means “son of Dracul”.
I mean there’s a reason Bram Stoker picked the name “Dracula” for his character ya know…
In Latin American Spanish we say “Donde el diablo perdió el poncho” that translates as “Where the devil lost his poncho” or “Donde cayó el avión” / “Where the plane crashed”
Is this a reference to the crash in the Andes?
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
Same in Arizona, people will say stuff like “he lives out in BFE.” I always heard it meant “Bum Fuck East” but is basically shorthand for “way out there.”
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.
(Southern) Germany has Hintertupfingen, where “Hinter-” refers to “behind”.
It really sounds like some 1000 year old village with 20 inhabitants.
Is that a real village? I only have a little knowledge of German but it sounds like a finger up the bum. Or a bum up the finger, I’m not sure
It’s not real and nor does it refer to fingers or your bum.
-ingen is a common suffix for towns in Baden-Württemberg. Tübingen, Reutlingen, Vaihingen, Villingen-Schwenningen are some of the bigger ones that come to my mind. But like half the towns are named -ingen.
So it’s more like Hinter-tupf-ingen if you want to lose the finger association.
I always liked “the ass end of nowhere”, so I guess you could combine the two to get someplace even further in the boonies as “the ass end of buttfuck”
“Bumfuck Nowheresville” = variant I haven’t seen here yet
I grew up with bumfuck nowhere or just bumfuck
Also Bumblefuck
I live in WA and I’ve only heard buttfuck nowhere
Because it’s so boring and far away from everything the only thing to do is fuck butts
Dylan Thomas named an imaginary Welsh town Llareggub (read it backwards).
Perfect! 😆😘👌🏼
I think this “<…>-nowhere” construction is common and adapted to different areas - I have definitely heard of “Bally-back-o-nowhere” in Ireland.
