Kiwi-family
{Rachael, the Mama of the family}
- Time of past OR future Camino
- walking every day for the rest of my life
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on another thread I saw mention of being in the “boonies”, a word I am unfamiliar with, but was instantly understandable. This got me thinking....how do others describe being in the middle of nowhere/ the back of beyond/ the wop-wops (or even just out in the wops - or the sticks, for that matter)?
Then I thought some more (it’s a very cerebrally active day)....are there regional variations? Which is really a rhetorical question (I have a linguistics major so I do know the answer is yes! Perhaps the question should be: can we identify some usages based on location?)
Then I had one more thought: how do people express this concept in other languages?
So if you’d like to chime in, would you mind giving your phrase (or its equivalent in English) and your location.....
this was commonly used referring to our 'bundok' by mountaineers.boonies
Well, in German we also have e.g. a village situated "in der Pampa", referring to the huge flat areas in Argentina. Don't ask me how Argentinan geography came into this german saying...
A more colloquial description of a remote place and not really polite is "am Arsch der Welt" which is common among youngsters. Living "in der Walachei" is another way of expressing the same thing, the Walachei being a landscape in Romania.
Actually that's a pretty comman discription of New ZealandAnd I've always loved the expression 'the arse end of nowhere', but that's because I never really grew up...
Yup. Boondocks came from "bundok" which literally means "mountain" in Tagalog*. Boonies for "jungle" may have come from our mountains being usually jungle, especially at that time.I believe "the boonies" is short for "the Boondocks," a Tagalog term for "jungle" that American soldiers brought back with them from the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century.
We also call it "the bush"...In Australia we have many many terms for the back of beyond because most of our country is the back of beyond. My guess is the most common term would be Outback.
When I was in the service there were a number of remote locations in which certain specialties could be assigned, so bad an assignment to one would qualify you for early release from your enlistment. The name Bum---k, Egypt came up often when these were discussed.In Western Pennsylvania USA (where my family is from), rural towns are affectionately called "East Armpit" or "Lower Bum---k,"
Aussies (...) having so much variety of "interesting" terms
I'm originally from Pennsylvania and say, that someone is from "Podunk, Iowa" - no offense to Iowans (Iowinians?). My Texas husband would say "out in the sticks" or "Hicksville."and "podunk" which is a reference used to describe small rural towns located waaay out in the middle of nowhere.
Well, I'm glad I live in Illinois and not Iowa!I'm originally from Pennsylvania and say, that someone is from "Podunk, Iowa" - no offense to Iowans (Iowinians?). My Texas husband would say "out in the sticks" or "Hicksville."
Thank you, Gerard, for mentioning this! There is a book by Nevil Shute called Beyond the Black Stump, and way back when I read it, I had no idea what it referred to - then forgot about it until now! And my library has the book!! Oh my goodness! Thanks again for the reminder!... my personal favourite, is "The other side of the black stump."
Well, in German we also have e.g. a village situated "in der Pampa", referring to the huge flat areas in Argentina. Don't ask me how Argentinan geography came into this german saying...
A more colloquial description of a remote place and not really polite is "am Arsch der Welt" which is common among youngsters. Living "in der Walachei" is another way of expressing the same thing, the Walachei being a landscape in Romania.
Also, I heard a French friend say that she lives dans le bled.
I found a few expressions in Spanish, the first is perhaps the most common idiom for denoting a remote place? None of them would be immediately comprehensible to me:
- En el quinto pino (in the fifth pine tree???)
- Allá por donde el aire da vuelta (where the wind turns)
- Donde Cristo dio las tres voces (biblical reference to the Temptation in the Desert)
- Donde Cristo perdió la zapatilla (where Christ lost his sandal)
on another thread I saw mention of being in the “boonies”, a word I am unfamiliar with, but was instantly understandable. This got me thinking....how do others describe being in the middle of nowhere/ the back of beyond/ the wop-wops (or even just out in the wops - or the sticks, for that matter)?
Then I thought some more (it’s a very cerebrally active day)....are there regional variations? Which is really a rhetorical question (I have a linguistics major so I do know the answer is yes! Perhaps the question should be: can we identify some usages based on location?)
Then I had one more thought: how do people express this concept in other languages?
So if you’d like to chime in, would you mind giving your phrase (or its equivalent in English) and your location.....
"Beyond Hope" with Hope being a small BC town beyond which there are lots of small communities and hamlets including Spuzzum. I was wondering, Northern Laurie, if you remember the band from Vancouver called "Six Cylinder" that had a hit called "Beyond Hope" with a refrain that went "If you haven't been to Spuzzum you ain't been anywhere!"I lived in Argentina for a year as an exchange student - lots of families from Germany (and Italy too). There is some complicated history there I'd bet...
In my family (southern Canadian), you might talk about "up North", wilderness, middle of nowhere (again), in the middle of bloody nowhere (and less polite versions), the wild, back country, Spuzzum (a very regional reference to an almost non-existent village), wifi-free zone, and there are a range of other expressions that really can't be brought up here. Like Australia, there are a lot of places that really are empty, so various forms of creative emphasis are required.
Flying North is an extraordinary experience - I recently flew from Fort St. John (in the North) to Vancouver at night. During the 1.25 hour flight, the only lights from towns and villages were visible during the first 5 and last 15 minutes. Otherwise, I could see a single source of artificial lighting in the mountains perhaps once every 15 minutes (and that seems optimistic).
As a Kiwi I often heard *wop wop."
in Aussie I still hear "woop woops" and "back of beyond."
In both countries, and my personal favourite, is "The other side of the black stump."
Neville Shute, brilliant story teller, love his books.Thank you, Gerard, for mentioning this! There is a book by Nevil Shute called Beyond the Black Stump, and way back when I read it, I had no idea what it referred to - then forgot about it until now! And my library has the book!! Oh my goodness! Thanks again for the reminder!
Oh YES, @FLEUR !! Since this thread reminded me of him, I'm reading all his books again!! I appreciate his writing even more now!Neville Shute, brilliant story teller, love his books.
Just realised of course its NZ, they're doing road works!
A bit off the theme, but did you know Tasmania was named Van Diemen's Land by Europeans after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman charted some of the coastline (before it was known as an island). Tasman named the land Anthooniji van Diemenslandt after Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. It was renamed Tasmania, now part of Australia, in 1856. History is so interestingNice challenge, but a hard one for a Dutchie. In a country the size of a postage stamp, it is difficult to end up in the sticks. That might be the reason there isn't really a one-on-one translation of 'in the middle of nowhere' in Dutch. You can phrase it literal as 'in het midden van nergens' and everybody will know what you mean, but it isn't common to use it like that.
We do however have expressions like 'in niemandsland', which literally translates as 'in no man's land', i.e. uninhabited land. Or 'van god en iedereen verlaten', which is best described as godforsaken, or left by god and everyone else. But we do have a good synonym for 'the sticks' in Holland, because of our colonial past. Rimboe, a word that originated from the former Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) word 'remboe' (which in turn comes from the Malaysian 'rimba'), meaning wilderness or jungle.
The most common expression that springs to mind though is one of derision. For some people in the Netherlands there is a very clear line between city-folk and those not living in a (big) city. Everybody in Amsterdam and the surrounding big cities (Rotterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht) lives in the Randstad as they call it, an agglomeration. Everybody else is therefore a 'provinciaal' or lives in 'de provincie', meaning provincial and province. You're basically a hick if you live there, is what they are trying to say. Snobsters...
Ha, maybe she knew my grandmother who worked there as a girl. As an aside, when I get lost on the Camino I can often be heard miss using a comman kiwi call: "Where the Whuckarewe!"Or even just the wops
When we were kids the expression was "heading to Ekatahuna" I thought it was an imaginary place. I was fully adult before I realized it was a place, and my grandmother was born there!
LOLHa, maybe she knew my grandmother who worked there as a girl. As an aside, when I get lost on the Camino I can often be heard miss using a comman kiwi call: "Where the Whuckarewe!"
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