Placeholder name
A
placeholder name is used to refer to an object whose name is either irrelevant or unknown in the
context which it is being discussed. These
placeholders typically function
grammatically as
nouns—and can be used for people (e.g.
John Doe), objects (e.g.
Widget), or places (e.g.
Timbuktu). They share a property with
pronouns because their
referents must be supplied by context.
Stuart Berg Flexner and
Harold Wentworth's
Dictionary of American Slang (1960) uses the term
kadigin to describe this class of words. They define it merely as a synonym for
thingamajig; if so, then
kadigin is itself a kadigin. The term may have originated with
Willard Richardson Espy, though others such as David Annis also used it (or
cadigans) in their writing. Its
etymology is obscure—Flexner and Wentworth related it to the generic word
gin for
engine (as in the
cotton gin). It may also relate to the
Irish surname Cadigan.
Words describing generic categories may also be used in this function of a placeholder (e.g., "flower" for
tulips and
roses), but they are not considered to be cadigans.
Common placeholders in the
English language include:
*
buddy[
1] (
Newfoundland English)
*
chummy[
2] (Newfoundland English)
*
crap*
da' kine (Common in Hawaii)
*
dealie or
dealy*
dealyjobber*
dingus*
doobri or
dooberry*
doodad*
doohickey*
doofer*
doover or
dooverlacky *
efamijig*
frammis*
frammisite*
frobnitz*
gadget*
geemie*
gewgaw or
geegaw*
gizmo*
gubbins*
hickey (Common in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
*
hodad*
hingmy (
Scottish, derived from
thingummy)
*
jawn (Common in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
*
jobby (
Scottish, popularised by
Billy Connolly)
*
junk*
machine[
3] (Newfoundland English)
*
kerjigger*
McGuffin*
mumble*
oojamaflip*
oojamafurkle*
oojamawotsit*
shit*
stuff*
thing*
thingamabob*
thingamaflap*
thingamajig*
thingamajigger*
thingamajobber*
thingum*
thingummy*
thingy*
widget*
whatchamacallit (US form of whatsitsname) (originated by the phrase "What you may call it")
*
whatnot*
whatsit (often spelled
wotsit)
*
whatsitsname (British form of whatchamacallit) (the alternative, phonetic spelling
wossname was devised by British humorist
Alan Coren in the 1970s)
*
whoosiwagger*
whozis*
whozeewhatsit*
yoke (Commonly used in
Ireland)
Items which have been or could conceivably be described with a placeholder are
torque wrenches,
sewing machine bobbins,
crochet hooks,
dongles, and other objects which are gender or trade specific.
Thingamajigs are typically specialized devices which have a limited number of uses or a single specific use. The term is typically employed by one whose experience with the use of the object is nonexistent or very limited. Regular users of such devices would never refer to them as
thingamajigs or any of the related terms listed below.
A thingamajig is different from a
widget, in that a widget is an actual, but not yet named or constructed, mechanical component. It is also different from a
gadget, in that "gadget" is the generic term for a superfluously useful device, such as a remote garage door opener, whose name is easily remembered.
Thingamajigs are of such a nature that they are also typically referred to by location: "The doofunny on the kitchen counter", "the geemie beside the couch", or "that thing on top of the fridge". It is assumed by the listener that anything else on top of the fridge, such as the box of tissues, the pictures of the kids, or the can of air freshener, which are more ordinary and thus more nameable than the "thing" for which one is looking, are not the requested object. Where one might request a hammer with no reference to location, one would not similarly request a doohickey.
Even among the world of otherwise nameless things referred to by placeholder names, there is a hierarchy of specificity. "Thing", as its name implies, is universally applicable. It is likely, however, that a "gizmo" involves some minor degree of technological sophistication, connoting as it does some mechanical or electronic aspect.
"Crap", "stuff", "junk", and "shit" are
mass noun placeholders in English. The last term (and, to a much lesser extent, the first) is often considered obscene because of its scatological connotation.
Most of these words exist in the less formal
register of the English language. In more formal speech and writing, words like
paraphernalia,
artifact, or
utensil are called into play; these words also refer to things made by human hands without getting specific about their form or function. These words also differ slightly in usage:
artifacts are usually found objects of indeterminate age and purpose, while
utensil suggests
cutlery.
These words have been in regular use since at least the nineteenth century.
Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story entitled
The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq., showing that particular form to be in familiar use in the
United States in the 1840s. In
Gilbert and Sullivan's
The Mikado,
W. S. Gilbert makes the Lord High Executioner sing of a "little list" which includes:
. . . apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such asThing'em-bob, and likewise'st and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.
The need for such words increases as
technology advances. Indeed, placeholder names have a grand future, if the
Star Trek television franchise predicts accurately: many of the show's "scientific explanations" of their futuristic technology have a curious placeholder quality to them, which has given rise to the description
Treknobabble.
Placeholder names in computing
In
computing, placeholders also exist.
*
Foo and
bar (see
Metasyntactic variable) are commonly used as placeholders for
file,
function, and
variable names. The frequent form
foobar may have come from the military acronym
FUBAR, although the
Jargon File makes a reasonably good case
["For, it seems, the word 'foo' itself had an immediate prewar history in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the Smokey Stover comic strip published from about 1930 to about 1952. Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense phrases such as "Notary Sojac" and "1506 nix nix". The word "foo" frequently appeared on license plates of cars, in nonsense sayings in the background of some frames (such as "He who foos last foos best" or "Many smoke but foo men chew"), and Holman had Smokey say "Where there's foo, there's fire"." foo] that
foo predates
fubar.
*
Frapazoid is sometimes used to denote a generic piece of
software.
Hacker slang includes a number of placeholders, such as
frob, which may stand for any small piece of equipment.
To frob, likewise, means to adjust (a device) in an aimless way, or to toggle a value between alternate states.
Other words used as placeholder names
Other words that may have specific technical meanings are occasionally used as placeholders as well. Some words that are so used in English include:
flange (sometimes with the specific meaning removed by spelling it as
phlange)
kedgesprocketwicketwidgetVulgar placeholder names
Any number of English
swear words can be used as placeholders. The word
fuck is noted for being used in many roles and parts of speech, both with and without derogatory intent: a
fucker may be any thing or person whatsoever, while
fucking with something is equivalent to
fooling with or
messing with it and denotes no particular action. English is hardly unique in this regard; see below for similar uses in Russian and Spanish.
The words
shit and, more rarely,
crap are used as
mass noun placeholders, cruder equivalents to
stuff.
Kadigan-like expressions can refer to people as well. Among words or phrases used in English to refer to people of unknown or irrelevant name are:
Tom, Dick and Harry, for a series of three specific unnamed people; or for any quantity of unknown people, usually with the term "every", for example: "Every Tom, Dick and Harry showed up to the party."
So-and-so; also often used as a euphemism for a stronger, possibly vulgar epithet, for example, "that stupid...
so-and-so!"
Buddy (Newfoundland English), any male of unknown identity, often used in conjunction with "Whasisname".
What's his/her name or
Whasisname/WhassernameWhat's his/her face (also
what's his/her nose or
what's his/her bucket)
Joe Bloggs (British male, referring to anyone of unknown identity)
Fred Bloggs (British male, referring to a subsequent unknown person)
Joe Public (British English, refers to an average person in the street)
Joe Soap (Average male person)
Josephine Soap (Average female person. Often married to Joe)
John Doe (American male; generally used when referring to unnamed/unknown deceased man)
Jane Doe (American female; generally used when referring to unnamed/unknown deceased woman)
Joe Blow (average male person - North America)
Joe Six-Pack (average male person; generally lacking technical knowledge)
The Joneses (used as a placeholder for the typical average family)
Miss Thing (cf. French
Petite Chose)
Mrs Kafoops (Australian, slightly derogatory)
Dat fella (Malaysian/Singaporean, for "that fellow")
Yer man (Irish male)
Yer one (Irish female. Unlike the male form, sometimes used to connote contempt)
Himself/Herself (Irish male/female)
Lord/Lady Muck (Male/Female who is acting as if others are their servants)
Frick and Frack (Indistinguishable Male pair)
Dave Random (British English, a person one doesn't know but frequently sees)
Grandma (a usually older adult lacking technical knowledge)
Certain fixed expressions are used as placeholder names in a number of specialized contexts. In formal contexts,
John Does are sometimes mentioned; in more informal English, people sometimes need to speak of
Old So-and-so or
What's-'is-name or
What's-'is-face (cruder) or
Miss Thing.
Tommy Atkins is a mythical Briton who filled out all his forms correctly, and as such lent his name to British soldiers generally; his Canadian counterpart is "Corporal (or some other rank) Bloggins".
John Smith, often from "
Anytown, U.S.A.," and
John Q. Public are also used as placeholder names for unnamed citizens, and similarly in Britain one might refer to Joe or Fred
Bloggs. In
Australia, the name
John Citizen is used in a similar capacity on samples of forms or cards. In America,
Joe or Jane Sixpack refers to the perceived average
middle or
lower class person. In
theatre,
television and
motion pictures, the great
actors
Walter Plinge,
David Agnew, and
George Spelvin are
pseudonyms used for cast members who prefer to go unnamed. The name
Alan Smithee is similarly used by film directors who wish to remain anonymous (often because their film did not turn out well). Conversely, placeholders can be used to conceal identity, as seen in the above Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics. The Newfoundland entertainer "Buddy Whasisname" derives his stage name a common local usage (combining two terms) describing an unknown male.
Movies and theatre also give rise to another specific type of kadigan, the
MacGuffin. This is any object or person used to drive a plot or as the goal of a
quest, but which otherwise has no relevance to the action, and thus could be replaced in the script with another similar item with no loss of sense. A
foozle is a generic enemy or group of enemies that must be defeated for the plot to move on in a game.
Placeholder names as a form of address
Some placeholders are used in second-person to address another, usually " but not always " because the second party's name is unknown.
Sir or
Ma'am. In English-speaking society, the most universally-accepted forms of address to another person, known or unknown, and regardless of station, are "Sir" (to men) and "Ma'am" (to women). "Sir" and "Ma'am", for example, are considered acceptable forms of address for most of the world's heads of state, including royalty.
Friend. "Friend" or other synonyms of amity may be used in its literal sense, but is often used ironically to indicate displeasure or hostility.
Terms of endearment. Words such as "honey" or "sweetie" are generally perceived as affectionate between friends, family or intimates. Outside this group, or in more formal or professional settings, the use of these words becomes more problematic. Their use by a person to a member of the opposite sex may be seen as forward or presumptuous, or even patronizing and demeaning (especially when used by a man to a woman). When used by a woman to address another woman, the sense may be friendly or hostile (see
Friend, above); when used by a man to another man, it is generally perceived to have homosexual overtones (i.e., suggesting that either the speaker or the addressee " or both " is homosexual).
Second-person kadigans include:
*
Baby or
Babe*
Boss*
Brother (man)
Sister (woman)
*
Buddy or
Bud ("Buddy" is especially common in Newfoundland English)
*
B'y: Newfoundland pronunciation of "Boy", used as a general form of address primarily to a male but now increasingly to females. It does not hold any of the derogatory meaning that the term "Boy" does in standard English, especially when directed at minorities
*
Chum*
Darling*
Dear*
Dude (man or woman)
*
Ducks*
Friend*
Grandpa,
Grampa, or
Gramps, often a disrespectful address for an older man
*
Honey or
Hon*
Jack (man), generally in an unfriendly sense
*
Lady (woman)
*
Ma'am,
Madam, or
Madame (woman)
*
Mac (man)
*
Man (to a man). It may also be used as an interjection, not addressed to anyone in particular, in which case it is not truly a kadigan ("Aw, man!").
*
Mate (UK, man)
*
Miss, generally addressed to a young woman or girl. In some dialects, it is a form of address for a female teacher, regardless of her marital status.
*
Missus, Newfoundland English term of respect or affection for a mature woman
*
Neighbour*
Pal or
Pally*
Padre, from the Spanish word for "father", a military kadigan for any man of the cloth, regardless of denomination
*
Pop or
Pops, often a disprespectful term for an older man
*
Sir (man)
*
Sister (woman)
*
Skipper; Newfoundland English term of respect or affection for a mature man
*
Son: generally used by an older man to one at least a generation youger; or by a man who, by virtue of rank or position, has charge or authority over the other, such as a drill sergeant over a private soldier. In the latter instance, it may be in a highly hostile context: "Son, you'd best move your ass before you find my foot up it!"
*
Sweetheart or
SweetieIn some forms of English, placeholder names exist to represent locations, particularly the stereotypical backward, insignificant or isolated town in the middle of nowhere. These include:
Anytown, USA and
Dullsville in the USA
East Jabip/Jebip in the USA
East Jesus in the USA
East Cupcake in the USA
(East/West) Bum(ble)fuck in the USA (somewhat impolite)
Dog River,
Armpit or
Moose Fuck in Canada
Sainte-Clotilde-de-Rubber-Boot in Quebec
Loamshire for a rural county in England (and
the Loamshires for a
regiment based in that county)
Podunk in the USA
Wop-wop(s) in Australia and New Zealand
Waikikamukau (pronounced ‘Why kick a moo-cow') in New Zealand
Black Stump in Australia and New Zealand ("Beyond Black Stump" indicates an extremely remote location).
Timbucktoo is still commonly used to refer to an unspecified but remote place.
Blackacre,
Whiteacre, and
Greenacre are widely used in law courses to represent hypothetical estates in land.
Bumfuk, Egypt, usually abbreviated BFE, refers to somewhere you have to travel to (usually on foot) that is far away (e.g.
Man, you parked way the hell out in BFE)
Bally-Go-Backwards in Ireland (unspecified remote small country town)
Common components of placeholders for places are -town, -ville, -hampton (in the
United Kingdom), -vale, Big-, Mid-, Middle-, Little-, Small-, Bally- (in
Ireland), and Any-. The
National Health Service of the UK, as well as the
Department for Transport, use a large variety of placeholders as examples, including:
*Axtley
*Port Lever
*Lampton
*Middlehampton
*Anyshire
*Eastern Vale
English employs a number of kadigans to refer to unspecified quantity (see
Indefinite and fictitious large numbers):
* squillion (hence
squillionaire = multi-millionaire), bajillion, buhmillion, frillion, gazillion, jillion, kajillion, schmillion,
zillion and many others — these usually refer to
large numbers that would be impractical to count;
* "eleventy -"; eg "eleventy-four". (Occasionally used in jocose literal sense "one hundred and ten", as in
The Lord of the Rings:
Bilbo Baggins'
eleventy-first birthday was his
one hundred and eleventh);
*
mumblety, used specifically to conceal one's advanced age, as in ‘I shall be mumblety this year';
*
umpteen;
* oodles;
* tons;
* some-odd;
* a couple (although this can also have the specific value 2);
* a couple-few (in some dialects);
* bunch, as in "a whole bunch of..."
*-something (for example
twenty something]) as exemplified by the name of the
television series thirtysomethingThe following particles likewise refer to unspecified quantity, but are not placeholder names as defined in this article:
* few
* a few
* several
* lots
* many
* Composite names such as "Juvember" (combining June and November), "Febtober" (February and October), and "Decemuary" (December and January) are sometimes used to refer to an indeterminate month.
* Nonexistent days, such as February 31.
* "Tib's Eve", named for the nonexistent Saint Tib, is a date which does not exist.
* Saint's days of saints with obscure or odd-sounding names, such as
Saint Swithin's Day.
* "Two hairs past a freckle", (or "a freckle past a hair") said when one is asked the time but is not wearing a watch
* "God-thirty in the morning," "fuck o'clock," and "silly o'clock", referring to a time very early in the morning
* "Oh-dark thirty" or "Oh-dark hundred," also referring to some time early in the morning (before the sun rises); usage is derived from military parlance, where 4:00 a.m. is referred to as "oh-four-hundred"
* "Dark plus thirty" meaning (loosely) just after
dawn in
Rainbow Gathering or
Deadhead (or other festival) vernacular, meaning or thirty minutes after sundown, or more humorously, in at some indeterminate time after dark, Rainbow Gatherings tending not to happen according to any sort of schedule.
* "Dark o' clock" may mean early or late.
* "Yonks" is used in British English to mean a long but indefinite duration; it is conjectured to derive either from "d
onkey's
years" or from
"years, m
onths and wee
ks".
Most other languages have placeholders of some sort in their vocabulary.
Arabic
Arabic uses
Fulan /
Fulana[h] فلان / فلانة and when a last name is needed it becomes
Fulan AlFulani /
Fulana[h] AlFulaniyya[h] فلان الفلاني / فلانة الفلانية. When a second person is needed,
ʿillan /
ʿillana[h] علان / علانة is used. The use of
Fulan has been borrowed into Spanish and Portuguese as shown below.
Catalan
Catalan uses the names
daixonses and
dallonses to refer to any object or person.
d'això and
d'allò are also used with the same purpose.
Chinese
In
Chinese, question words are used as placeholders. An unspecified object is
shenme or
shenme shenme (
Simplified Chinese: 什么什么;
Traditional Chinese: 什麼什麼) (literally, "what what"), an unspecified location is
nali ("里) , literally "where," an unspecified person
shei (谁), literally "who," and so on.
Dutch
In
Dutch the primary placeholder is
dinges (derived from
ding, "thing"), used for both objects and persons. The diminutive of
ding,
dingetje (lit. "little thing" or "thingy") serves as a kadigan for objects when used with an article, and for persons without. The equivalent of
John Doe for an unspecified (but not an unidentified) person is
Jan Jansen ("Jansen" being one of the most common Dutch surnames) while
Jan Modaal ("John Average") is the average consumer and
Jan Publiek ("John Public") the man in the street. Obscure, faraway places are
Timboektoe and
Verweggistan (lit. "Farawayistan"); the archetypal small village is
Nergenshuizen ("Nowhereville"). The nonsense word
hutsefluts is used as a placeholder for just about any proper name.
Esperanto
Esperanto has an all-purpose placeholder suffix
um, which has no fixed meaning and simply tells that an object or action has something to do with some purpose or object, for instance
butonumi ("to button up" or "to press a button"). It can be used as a root and inflected in various forms,
umi, umilo, umecaĵo etc.It has acquired a specific meaning in some compounds, like
brakumi, "to embrace", from
brako, "arm".
Finnish
Sampo can be considered the oldest placeholder word in the
Finnish language. In folk mythology and in the
Kalevala, it refers to a mystical object which was a source of immeasurable wealth and whose exact nature remains a mystery. The word is still in use – in particular, it can be found in expressions such as
rahasampo ("a
cornucopia of money").
Hilavitkutin is one of the most common Finnish placeholder words for objects. It refers to "a device for
vitkuttaa-ing a
lattice". The ordinary meaning of the verb
vitkuttaa is nonsensical in this context, as it means "to do something slowly in order to delay it". Arguably,
vitkuttaa can also evoke associations of "shaking back and forth" in native speakers of Finnish.
An idiosyncratically Finnish placeholder word is
mikälie or
mikä lie, literally "whatever (it) may be". It utilizes the Finnish verb form
lie or
lienee, meaning "(it) probably is" – i.e., "to be" in the
potential mood. This inflected word form is quite rare in everyday speech, which has resulted in its grammatical function being (mis)interpreted by native speakers as a
grammatical particle instead of a
verb. This, in turn, has given rise to constructions such as
mikälie.
Other generic placeholder words in colloquial use include
systeemi ("system"), and
juttu,
jutska,
homma and
hommeli ("thing", "thingy").
Stiiknafuulia was introduced by the author
Teuvo Pakkala in 1895 and has more or less fallen out of use.
Tilpehööri derives phonetically from the
swedish language "till behöver" (that which is needed), and can refer especially to very small items, often found in small plastic bags, needed to put together furniture (say from
IKEA) or other kits (model planes for example).
The most common placeholder name for a remote location or a "backwater town" is
Takahikiä. Actual locations in
Finland that have acquired a similar status include
Peräseinäjoki and, to some extent,
Pihtipudas, though the latter is mostly associated with the proverbial
Pihtiputaan mummo ("the grandmother from Pihtipudas"). They are usually spelled with a small initial letter when they are used as placeholder names.
Placeholders for people include the ubiquitous
Matti Meikäläinen (male) and
Maija Meikäläinen (female), and the relatively less common
Tauno Tavallinen ("Tauno the Ordinary"). In official contexts, the initials
N.N. are used. Placeholders for large numbers include
tsiljoona and
biljardi. The latter is a
portmanteau of
miljardi (10
9) and
biljoona (10
12, see
billion). It has an intentional double meaning, as the word also means "
billiards".
In Finnish military slang,
tsydeemi has traditionally been used to refer to a special type of socks worn during wintertime. However, it has become a common generic placeholder word outside the military, possibly due to its phonetic similarity to the aforementioned
systeemi. In the
Finnish Defence Forces, placeholder names for soldiers include
Nönnönnöö (no meaning, derived from
N.N.),
Omanimi ("Private His-name") and
Te ("Private You").
French
Things
In
French, an unspecified artifact can be:
*
bidule (n.m.); this is from
military slang for something in disarray;
*
machin (n.m.), derived from
machine*
truc (n.m.), whose primary meaning is
trick*
chose (n.f.),
thingQuebec French also has
patente,
gogosse,
cossin and such (most of which have verb forms meaning "to fiddle with").
Places
In
France:
* Trifouillis-les-Oies (small village)
* Perpète, Perpète-les-Oies or Diable vauvert (for a place that is far away)
In French-speaking
Belgium,
Outsiplou or even Outsiplou-les-Bains-de-Pieds (Outsiplou-the-footbath) is used for a generic village of
Wallonia (there is an actual but little known village named Hout-si-Plout, whose name means "Listen whether it rains" in Walloon).
Among French people of North African origin (
"pieds-noirs"), Foun-Tataouine is the generic village, although a small village by that name actually does exist in Tunisia, lending its name.
In Québec,
St-clinclin and
Diable au vert are both used to distuish far away rural places.
People
Common placeholder names for people are
* In slang: Tartampion, Machin, Machin-chose, Trucmuche, Chose-binne.
* In proceedings and other more formal settings: "X" (
Monsieur X), "Y" etc.
German
German also sports a variety of placeholders; some, as in English, contain the element
Dings,
Dingens (also
Dingenskirchen),
Dingsda,
Dingsbums (sometimes even
Dingsdabumsda),
cognate with English
thing. Also,
Krimskrams suggests a random heap of small items, e.g. an unsorted drawerful of memorabilia or souvenirs. In a slightly higher register,
Gerät represents a miscellaneous artifact or utensil, or, in casual German, may also refer to an item of remarkable size. The use of the word
Teil (part) is a relatively recent placeholder in German that has gained great popularity since the late
1980s. Initially a very generic term, it has obtained specific meaning in certain contexts. For example, to buy
ecstasy customers usually simply ask for parts (
Teile) without danger of ambiguation.
Zeug oder
Zeugs (compare
Dings, can be loosely translated as
stuff) usually refers to either a heap of random items that is a nuisance to the speaker, or an uncountable substance or material, often a
drug. Finally,
Sache, as a placeholder, loosely corresponding to Latin
res, describes an event or a condition. Recently, the placeholder
Nupsi for something small protruding from something larger has become somewhat popular (via TV comedy, it is believed).
The German equivalent to the English
John Doe for males and
Jane Doe for females would be
Hans Mustermann and
Erika Mustermann, respectively. For many years,
Erika Mustermann was used on the sample picture of German id-cards ("Personalausweis").
["In 1987/88, Bundesdruckerei launched the central personalisation of identity cards and passports. This innovation gave us the first Ms Mustermann: Erika Mustermann, née Gabler, advertised the new ID and passport card from 1987 to 1997. The lady with the blond fringe, photographed in plain black-and-white, was Germany's first fictitious model citizen. A large fan club grew during this Ms Mustermann's long term of office, and they still sing her praises today on a special homepage created in her honour." The changing ms Mustermann over the years] In
Austria,
Max Mustermann is used instead. In
Cologne,
Otto (which can also refer to a
gadget) and
Gerdi are popular used names for men/boys and women/girls with unknown firstname.
Bert also had some popularity as a placeholder for names in the past. For remote or exotic locations, the Germans also use
Timbuktu, as is common in the English language; for towns or villages in the German-speaking world,
Kleinkleckersdorf or
Kuhdorf (lit.
cow village) is in usage. Other kadigans such as
Bad Sonstwo an der Irgend have been suggested.
Otto Normalverbraucher ("Otto Average-Consumer"; this is taken from bureaucratic jargon of post-WW2 food rationing via the name of a 1948 film character played by
Gert Fröbe) corresponds to the American "The Joneses", or John Sixpack.
Greek
In Greek mostly two "official" placeholders are used,
tade (original meaning was 'these here') and
deina. Eg. 'If Tade comes and asks me, I know what to say'. There is also the name Foufoutos used more jokingly. Unofficially, most cadigans are improvisional, derived from pronouns, such as
tetoios,
apotetoios,
apaftos, or
o etsi.
Hebrew
In
Hebrew, the word
ז" (
zeh, meaning 'this') is a placeholder used in place of any noun. The most popular personal name placeholders are
מ"-שמו (
mahshmo) or 'whatsisname' (thus: 'Tell mahshmo to put the zeh on the zeh'),
מֹשֶׁ" (
Moshe =
Moses) and
יוֹסִי (
Yossi,
diminutive form of
Joseph) for first name, and
כֹ"ֵן (
Cohen, the most popular last name in
Israel) for last name. However, in ID and credit card samples, the usual name is
Israel Israeli for a man and
Israela Israeli for a woman (these are actual first and last names). The traditional terms are Ploni פלוני and his party Almoni אלמוני. A vulgar term for an unspecified place mostly popular in the is
פִיזְ"ֶלוֹך (
pizdelokh, formed from the Russian
pizda,
pussy, and the German and
Yiddish Loch =
hole). Also quite common is
תיז (א)נביא (
Tiz (e) Nabi "the prophet's ass", from Arabic), and again
Timbuktu. A kadigan for a time in the far past is
תרפפ"ו (pronounced
Tarapapu, which somewhat resembles a year in the
Hebrew calendar but is not quite one).
Hungarian
In
Hungarian the word
izé (a stem of ancient
Finno-Ugric heritage) is used, referring primarily to inanimate objects but sometimes also to people, places, concepts, or even adjectives. Hungarian is very hospitable to
derivational processes and the
izé- stem can be further extended to fit virtually any grammatical category, naturally forming a rich family of derivatives: e.g.
izé whatchamacallit (noun),
izés whatchamacallit-ish (adjective),
izébb or
izésebb more whatchamacallit(ish) (comparative adjective),
izésen in a whatchamacallitish manner (adverb),
izél to whatchamacallit (often meaning: screw up) something (transitive verb),
izéltet to cause someone to whatchamacallit (transitive verb),
izélget to whatchamacallit continually (often meaning: pester, bother -- frequentative verb),
izélődik to whatchamacallit (fool, mess) around (durative verb). (In
slang izé and its verbal and nominal derivatives often take on sexual meanings). In addition to its placeholder function,
izé is an all-purpose
hesitation word, like
ah, er, um in English.
To name things, Hungarians also use
micsoda (whatisit),
hogyhívják or
hogyishívják (whatitscalled),
miafene (whatdaheck),
bigyó (thingie),
miafasz (whatdafuck).
John Smith (US: John Doe) is the same in Hungarian;
Kovács János or
Kovács István (John Smith or Steve Smith).
Place names:
Mucsaröcsöge (ending sounds similar to
röfög - to grunt) or
Bivalybasznád (literally: buffaloyouwouldfuck): little village or boonies far out in the countryside,
Piripócs: νillage or small town somewhere in the countryside
Italian
In
Italian the standard placeholders for inanimate objects are
roba (literally "stuff"),
coso (related to
cosa, thing),
affare (literally "business"), and
aggeggio.
For people, common words are
tizio,
tipo (literally, "type"), and
uno (literally, "one"). The latter is not accompanied by an article, and disappears in presence of a
demonstrative (e.g.
a guy is
un tipo or
uno,
that guy is
quel tipo or just
quello). The feminine versions are, respectively,
tizia,
tipa,
una.
Also there are specific terms (from ancient Roman typical male names) for three unnamed people: Tizio, Caio and Sempronio. They are always used in that order and with that priority (i.e., one person is always Tizio, two people are always Tizio and Caio).
One typical expression for a time very late in the night is
alle mille di notte (at one thousand o'clock).
Often,
Canicattì is used to refer to a place far away and diffcult to reach (even though that's the name of a real town in
Sicily).
Japanese
In
Japanese,
naninani (なになに, a doubled form of the word
nani, meaning
what) is often used as a placeholder. It does not necessarily mean a physical object; for example, it is often used to stand in for an omitted word when discussing grammar. A similar phrase is
nantoka nantoka. Hoge (ほ', no literal meaning) has been gaining popularity in the computing world, where it is used much like
foo and
bar.
nyoro nyoro (literally "tilde tilde") is also a popular placeholder name.
Latin
In
Latin the word
res (thing) is used. Some Latin legal writers used the name
Numerius Negidius as a John Doe placeholder name; this name was chosen in part because it shares its initials with the Latin phrases (often abbreviated in manuscripts to
NN)
nomen nescio, "I don't know the name";
nomen nominandum, "name to be named" (used when the name of an appointee was as yet unknown); and
non nominatus/nominata, "not named".
Malay
In
Malay the word
anu which may be prefixed with
si can be used to refer to a person whose name has eluded the speaker. It can also be used for a generic person as in
Mr/Ms So-and-so.
Maori
In
Maori the word
taru, literally meaning "long grass" or "weeds" is used.
Norwegian
In
Norwegian the placeholder names for people are Ola (male) and Kari (female) Nordmann.
Polish
In
Polish, the most popular placeholders are
cosik (from the word
coś -
something),
dynks (see
German Dings) and
wihajster (from the
German wie heisst er? -
what's this called?). Others, such as
elemelek or
pipsztok',' are less well-known. Also used are dzyngiel
(equivalent to dynks
) and knefel
(similar to frob
, unknown object that can be adjusted or manipulated).
The generic name for a village or a remote small town is Pipidówka
, or, its more derogatory version Pipidówa''.
Portuguese
Common placeholders for objects in
Brazilian Portuguese are
treco and
negócio, among others. In European Portuguese
coiso is often used. Placeholder names for people are usually
Fulano (optionally surnamed
de Tal),
Sicrano and
Beltrano, and the corresponding feminines.
João das Couves or
José da Silva are also used, the feminine being
Maria (instead of
José, which is also often abreviated to
Zé).
Quechua
In
Quechua, there is a noun radical
na (
whatever) to which verbal (
nay = to do whatever), agentive (
naq = the doer of whatever), or affective (
nacha = cute little thing) suffixes may be added.
Romanian
In
Romanian,
chestie is used for objects and concepts,
cutare for both persons and things.
Cutărică,
tip (masculine) or
tipă (feminine) are sometimes used for persons.
Drăcie ("devilish thing") is a derogative placeholder name for objects.
Other expressions used include
cum-îi-zice/
cum-se-cheamă ("what's-it-called"),
nu-ştiu-cum ("I-don't-know-how"),
nu-ştiu-ce ("I-don't-know-what"),
nu-ştiu-care ("I-don't-know-who"),
un din-ăla (masculine) or
o-din-aia (feminine) ("one of those things").
Placeholders for numbers include
zeci de mii ("tens of thousands"), often contracted to
j'de mii; and also
mii şi mii ("thousands and thousands").
Cucuieţii-din-Deal is a name for obscure and remote places.
Russian
In
Russian, among the common placeholder names are
это самое (
this particular [object]),
штука (
thing; diminutive forms also exist),
ботва(
leafy tops of root vegetables),
фигня(crud) and
хуйня (in
mat slang; roughly translatable as
something dickish) together with its minced forms such as
хрен (
horseradish). A term for something awkward, bulky and useless is
бандура (
bandura, an old Ukrainian
musical instrument, big and inconvenient to carry). A kadigan for a monetary unit is
тугрик (
tugrik, the
monetary unit of
Mongolia; as is the case with
Timbucktoo, most speakers are unaware of its actual existence). A placeholder name for obscure and remote places is
Тьмутаракань (
Tmutarakan, an ancient
Crimean city). Mukhosransk ("Fly's Shit Town") is a derogatory kadigan for a remote and uninteresting town. Duduevo and Novoyebenyovo (obscene) are sometimes used for a remote village or a suburban settlement. Placeholders for personal names include variations on names Иван (Ivan), Пётр (Pyotr/Peter), and Сидор (Sidor), such as
Иван Петрович Сидоров (Ivan Petrovich Sidorov) for a full name, or
Иванов (Ivanov) for a last name.
'асилий Пупкин (Vasiliy Pupkin) is also (jokingly) used as a generic name.
Spanish
Spanish tends to use fairly self-explanatory phrases as placeholders:
el como-se-llama ("what's-it-called"),
el que-te-dije ("what-I-said-to-you"),
el no-sé-que ("I-don't-know-what") ; they also reach for
Latin, and borrow
quídam as a word for something or another.
Chisme,
chirimbolo,
cacharro are generally used for any object or device.
Mexican Spanish adds
chingadera ("fuckery"), not to be used in polite circumstances. Names for unspecified persons include
Don Fulano/
Doña Fulana from Arabic (see above) and
Fulano/Fulana de Tal (
Fulana should be used with care as it has acquired the
euphemistic meaning of "prostitute", it may be defanged with the diminutive
Fulanita; if a second or third person is needed, they are
Mengano and
Zutano. Also used in dimunitive form,
Fulanito,
Menganito or
Zutanito.Further less used names are
Perengano or
Perencejito/a and in Cuba
Esperancejo.
Pepe ("Joe") is used as a generic person name and metasyntactic variable.For numbers,
veinticatorce ("twenty-fourteen") or
cuarentiquince ("forty-fifteen") for small numbers and
tropecientos ("trope hundred") for big numbers are used.The actress
Lina Morgan used to answer with
taytantos ("ty-something") when asked about her age.
Swedish
Swedish has a large, but fairly unimaginative vocabulary of placeholders:
Sak,
grej,
pryl,
mojäng/
moj (from French
moyen) and
grunka are the neutral words for thing. "Pryl" is also a small sharp tool used to make holes in tough materials, but this usage is less common. An older word for thing is
ting, which is common in idioms, and a pretty much obsolete one is
tingest. Some plural nouns are
grejsimojs,
grunkimojs,
grejs and
tjofräs, which correspond to thingamabob, and the youth loan word
stuff, which is pronounced with the Swedish u.
Apparat (or, more slangy,
mackapär) more specifically refers to a complex appliance of some kind, much like the German
Gerät. More familiarly or when openly expressing low interest, people use
tjafs or
trams (drivel) and
skräp or
krams (rubbish). Like in English, various words for feces can be used:
skit (shit) and
bajs (poop - often anglified by youth into
bice) are standard, well known local variations are
mög,
bös and
dret.
Vadhannuhette and
vaddetnuhette correspond to
whatshisname and
whatchamacallit respectively, except that they use the past tense.
Det där du vet means "that thing you know".
Den och den (that and that) corresponds to
so and so.
Gunk may refer to any fairly large quantity of unwanted substance or objects of varied or indeterminate identity, much like the English "junk".
Place names in Swedish are more colorful: Someplace far away can be called
Tjotaheiti (which is derived from "to Tahiti") or
Långtbortistan,
Farawaystan, a play on
-stan.
Häcklefjäll is a commonly used as a name for a generic remote village, which is actually a synonym for the
Icelandic volcano
Hekla. Common names used as placeholders are Anna and Maria for women, Johan and Anders for men and Svensson (Svensson used to be a common Swedish surname, but is still often used to express genericness or mundaneness).
Turkish
Turkish has many colorful kadigans. "Falan" seems to be borrowed from Arabic, and comes in variations like "filanca" (what's his name) and "falan filan" (stuff, etc.). "Ivir zivir" is a common kadigan for "various stuff". Kadigans for persons exist in abundance, one example being "Sari Cizmeli Mehmet Aga" ("Mehmet Aga with yellow boots") which generally is used to mean "unknown person".
Vietnamese
In
Vietnamese,
Nguyễn Văn A and
Nguyễn Thị B are usually used as placeholder names for a male and female, respectively, due to the ubiquity of the family name
Nguyễn and middle names
Văn and Thị in Vietnamese.
Welsh
In
Welsh, the word
bechingalw has been used, literally
whatdyoucallit.
Ubykh
One of the kadigans in
Ubykh,
zamsjada, may be related to another word meaning
useless.
Yiddish
In
Yiddish,
der zach is often used, similar to the German
die Sache above.
Stand-up comic David Steinberg did a
routine about his attempt to identify an object, based only on his father's description of it as "In Yiddish, we used to call it
der zach".
Yoruba
In
Yoruba, Lagbaja and Temedu are the most common placeholder names.
*
Metasyntactic variable*
Sampo*
John Doe*
Generic you*Espy, W.,
An Almanac of Words at Play (Clarkson Potter, 1979) ISBN 0517520907
*Flexner, S. B. and Wentworth, H.,
A Dictionary of American Slang; (Macmillan, 1960) ISBN 9998065100
