https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/ Author of the Outlander Series Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:45:02 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.40 https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-4/#comment-1265640 Sat, 25 Oct 2025 13:28:15 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-1265640 People in my family used the term too. It was often used along with Jabbroni. “A Jabbroni from Jabrew”. “A fool from nowhere “ was the point of this expression! As the Beatles would have sung it…”a real nowhere man”…

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-1133522 Thu, 03 Oct 2024 11:13:46 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-1133522 In Yiddish, the word is “yenemsvelt,” literally “someone else’s world.” It means a place that is remote, somewhere you would never normally go.

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-1007931 Tue, 01 Aug 2023 01:07:03 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-1007931 Pennsyltucky is specifically the middle of Pennsylvania that is between Philadelphia and Pittsburg

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-689558 Tue, 22 Sep 2020 02:17:20 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-689558 I remember north Jersey being referred to as “going up to the armpit of the universe “

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-555241 Mon, 03 Dec 2018 22:48:40 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-555241 My wife, a coal miner’s daughter from West By God Virginia, used to refer to such places as where God lost his socks. Don’t know where it came from – probably her mother.

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-15361 Sun, 25 Nov 2012 08:08:23 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-15361 My dad always used ‘out passed the arse-hole of the earth’ .
As Canadian kids, we used ‘fuck-a-toboggan’ as one word,so the ‘geezers’ didn’t understand what we were saying.Ha.

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-15209 Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:43:22 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-15209 How about “Tarnation,” as in “Where in Tarnation are we?!”

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-4/#comment-15185 Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:47:45 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-15185 I’ve heard Hell’s Half Acre quite a few times, and have often used it to question my sanity while Christmas shopping. “Why, exactly, am I tramping over Hell’s Half Acre trying to find a pink and green Furbee?”

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-15184 Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:41:34 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-15184 In central Ontario, I hear (and use) Buttfuck Idaho, Buttfuck Egypt, out in the sticks, the boonies, up the Bunny Trail (a very real, very convoluted winding, serpentine, rutted, back country logging road) or Hell N Gone. As in “I’d come visit more but you live Hell N Gone and it’s too far.”

]]> https://dianagabaldon.com/2012/06/the-backside-of-beyond-and-other-ways-of-describing-nowhere/comment-page-5/#comment-14591 Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:01:46 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/?p=1866#comment-14591 My dad always used to say “Out where Christ parked his bicycle”. Love this.

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