My fellow Americans, are you familiar with the cuts or the sticks?

37 comments

1. You mean the boonies?

2. Fellow American here. I am very confused.

3. Sticks, boonies, or bumbfuck nowhere.

4. I’ve commonly heard “the sticks” but literally never “the cuts.”

5. I’ll occasionally use the phrase “out in the sticks” essentially means in the middle of nowhere.

6. The sticks, yes.

   All I know about the cuts is that the first one is the deepest.

7. The sticks, the woods, nowheresville, East Bumf**k.

   Never heard of the cuts.

8. Never heard of the cuts but the sticks is subjective. People from the city might call the town nearest me the sticks. The townfolk might call my area the sticks, but no. 30 minutes up the road from me..those are the sticks..

9. I have heard of sticks but not cuts.

10. Out in the sticks = out in remote forest area.

    Out on the boonies = out in remote desert region.

    Never heard of the cuts

11. I’m familiar with the sticks. Never heard the cuts.

    I don’t really use the sticks though. If I mean somewhere more rural I’ll indicate the type of land it is-so I’ll say they live out in the desert or the mountains. Or if it’s indeterminate, I’d use ‘the boonies’ or the ‘boondocks’ or ‘out in the middle of nowhere’.

12. The sticks, yes

13. I know the sticks, never heard of the cuts.

14. I’ve heard the sticks, boonies, bumfuck. Never heard cuts in my life though

15. I’ve heard of the cuts before, usually only in areas where dredging took place though to leave dredge cuts

16. I’ve heard “the sticks” plenty, but never “the cuts.”

17. I have never heard the term “the cuts” sticks, boonies, east bubblefuck, etc, etc

18. Sticks, yes. Cuts, no.

19. I’ve heard of the sticks to mean in the middle of nowhere, like real country.

    But the only cuts I know is cut, not cuts, like “I’m in the cut” Or “they was out all the way in the cut” not cuts.

20. In the Appalachian Region we say somewhere is out in the sticks, someone might live in a hollow or hollar, a low area surrounded by mountains but with a still relatively high elevation is a cove although that is somewhat old fashioned, a gap in the mountains can be a pass, a gap, or a cut but never “in the cuts”

21. I have lived all over the Midwest and northeast and I have spent a lot of time in the south and west and I have never heard “the cuts.”

    That’s a new one to me.

    The sticks, the boonies, the country, bumfuck nowhere, bumfuck Egypt, middle of nowhere… yes. Just never the cuts.

22. The sticks is the woods. My wife is a piney, so she’s from the sticks.

    WTF is “the cuts”? I have never in my life heard that term.

23. Way out in the sticks would be East Bum Fuck in my area. Not sure what the Cuts are.

24. The sticks, the boonies, bumblefuck nowhere, Bumfuck, Egypt. All common expressions I’ve heard around the country.

    From the responses here, it seems like “the cuts” might just be a you thing, OP.

25. I’m familiar with “the sticks”, “the boonies”, “bumfuck nowhere”, and I’m sure a few others. Not “the cuts” though.

26. Heard sticks but where I am boonies is even more common.

27. I have to admit that until I read other answers giving contexts to “the sticks”, I didn’t recognize either. That’s because the phrasing “the cuts or the sticks” made me think of objects or some other slang, without a hint of the type of thing they referenced. I thought they might mean some game, some form of corporal punishment, or some local phenomenon.

    But having read the other replies, I’ll agree. I recognize “the sticks” as colloquial for distant or rural locations but never heard “the cuts” used that way.

28. The sticks yes

    Never heard of “the cuts”

29. Never heard of the cuts before but UD has an entry for “in the cut.”

    https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=in%20the%20cut

    Edit:

    This isn’t a very popular term perhaps but when I lived in a mountain town, some people called the hairpin curves in roads that go up the side of a mountain “cutbacks,” (which I think is a misnomer, “cut back asphalt” being an asphalt mixture used for cold weather applications – which would maybe be used on those roads, so someone mistook the road surface material for a description of the layout of the road).

    I heard people use the term “cutback country” or “way out in Cutback County” to mean out in the middle of nowhere. But not a lot. Could have been just something a few people I knew said.

    Could be related or coincidental.

30. I’ve heard “the sticks” and pretty much everything else that has been mentioned in this thread. I’ve never heard anyone saying “the cuts”.

31. I’ve heard in the sticks and in the cut. Never with the S though.

32. Sticks is pretty universal. Cuts, no. In my area, “cuts” are slices of pizza.

33. Im in Northern California/Bay Area and say “the cuts” to describe out in the country/boonies/fields. Not sure where it came from, just grew up saying it.

34. I’ve heard the cuts but I’ve heard it more from Northern California people. The sticks is pretty national.

35. Sticks yes. Cuts? No. Boonies. Yes.

36. Never heard the cuts, might be local to you. I’ve heard the sticks, I usually say the boonies

37. I’m familiar with “The Jets” and “The Sharks”. Does that count?