Placeholder name

Placeholder names are words that refer to objects or people whose names are either irrelevant or unknown in the context which it is being discussed. "Whatchamacallit" (for objects) and "Whatshisname" or "Whatshername" (for men and women, respectively) are defining examples.

Linguistic role

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.

Many placeholder names are synecdoches, that is, linguistic metaphors where a part of something is used for the whole or vice versa. "Average Joe" is an example of this as not all men are named Joe. Other placeholder names, such as "MacGuffin" or "whatchamacallit" have no identity beyond their use as placeholder names and are not synecdoches.

Stuart Berg Flexner and Harold Wentworth’s Dictionary of American Slang (1960) uses the term kadigin to describe placeholder words. They define kadigan merely as a synonym for thingamajig; if so, then kadigan is itself a kadigan. 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.

Connotation

Especially when used to refer to people, some placeholder names can have a connotation, usually negataive. See "Whatshisname" for an example.

Placeholder names in the English language for inanimate objects

Common placeholders in the English language include:

• dealie or dealy
• dingus
• doo-hickey
• doodad
• doofer
• frammis
• frobnitz
• gadget
• geemie
• gewgaw or geegaw
• gizmo

• hingmy (Scottish, derived from thingummy)
• hodad
• jobby or jobber
• junk
• MacGuffin
• stuff
• thing
• thingamabob
• thingamajig
• thingy

• widget
• whatchamacallit (US form of whatsitsname) (originated by the phrase “What you may call it”)
• whatnot
• whatsit (sometimes spelled wotsit)
• whatsitsname (British form of whatchamacallit)
• wing wong for a goose's bridle, Australian answer to naive "What is that?"
• yoke (Commonly used in Ireland)

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.

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.

Most of these words exist in the less formal register of the English language. In more formal speech and writing, words like accessory, paraphernalia, artifact, instrument, 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 as--What d’ye call him--Thing’em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind,
and ’St--’st--’st-- and What’s-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you.

According to Trey Parker's audio commentary, "schpadoinkle" was composed as a placeholder, and was not initially intended to actually be used in Cannibal! The Musical.

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 that foo predates fubar.

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)
• kedge
• sprocket
• wicket
• widget

Placeholder names in the English language for people

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".
• 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)
• A.N. Other (unspecified person on a list)
• Joe Blow (average male person - North America)
• Joe Schmoe (average male person - North America)
• John Q. Public (average male person - North America)
• The Joneses (used as a placeholder for the typical average family)
• 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)
• Joe Soap (Irish English, refers to any typical person)
• 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)
• Grandma (a usually older adult lacking technical knowledge)

Certain fixed expressions are used as placeholder names in a number of specialized contexts. In formal legal 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. "Joe Random" or "Joe Average" are also referred to, sometimes more specifically as "Joe Average Voter" or "Joe Random Customer". 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.

Cryptographers conventionally use a fixed cast of characters when describing their systems in general terms. For example, the quintessential cryptographic system has Alice wanting to send a message to Bob without Eve being able to eavesdrop on them. These are even used in formal, peer-reviewed papers in the field.

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
• Bloke (Man, British English)
• Boss
• Brother or Bro (man); also a normal form of address for a members of various fraternal or monastic groups
• Buddy or Bud ("Buddy" is especially common in Newfoundland English)[1][2]
• 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[3]
• Chief
• Chum or Chummie/Chummy
• Darling
• Dear or Dearie
• Dude (man or woman)
• Ducks or Ducky
• Friend
• Geezer (Man, British English)
• Grandpa, Grampa, or Gramps, often a disrespectful address for an older man
• Honey or Hon
• Jack (man), generally in an unfriendly sense
• Lad or Lass
• Lady (woman)
• Love (UK)
• Ma'am, Madam, or Madame (woman)
• Mac (man)
• Maid, (Newfoundland English) a woman, or a young unmarried girl or daughter[4]
• 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[5]
• 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 disrespectful term for an older man
• Sir (man)
• Sister (woman)
• Skipper, Newfoundland English term of respect or affection for a mature man[6]
• 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 Sweetie

Placeholder names in the English language for locations

In 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
• Auchterturra in Scotland
• (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
• Woop Woop in Australia and New Zealand (often 'out Woop Woop' as in, 'they live out Woop Woop somewhere,' and used when referring to people who live in a country area unfamiliar to the speaker).
• 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.
• Joe's Diner is used to refer to a typical restaurant run as a small business.
• Bumfuck, Egypt (or Butt Fuck, Egypt, or just Butt Fuck), usually abbreviated BFE, refers to an unspecified remote location or destination, assumed to be arduous to travel to, unpleasant to visit and/or far away from anything of interest to the speaker (e.g. Man, you parked way the hell out in BFE). For example: one of the many extremely remote and inhospitable military outposts where U.S. service personnel are assigned to serve, especially any Middle East tour of duty. (said for humorous effect, generally offensive)
• Bally-Go-Backwards in Ireland (unspecified remote small country town)
• Oxbridge in the UK (a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge, locations of the two most prestigious universities. It refers to the two universities collectively, not to the two towns).

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

Placeholder names in the English language for numbers

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;
• scads;
• buckets;
• 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 thirtysomething

The following particles likewise refer to unspecified quantity, but are not placeholder names as defined in this article:

• a few
• several
• lots
• loads
• many

Placeholder names in the English language for dates

• 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 or the 12th of Never (usually given as the intended date of occurrence for something that will never happen, as in the popular song The Twelfth of Never).
• "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.

Placeholder names in the English language for times

• "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," "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.
• "Beer thirty" means it's time for the first beer in a beer-drinking session. Alternatively, beer thirty means an unspecified time during a long bout of drinking.
• "Yonks" is used in British English to mean a long but indefinite duration; it is conjectured to derive either from "donkey's years" or from "years, months and weeks". This has been going on for donkey's yonks.
• "Half past a monkey's ass" or "Half past a monkey's ass and quarter till his balls" is used when one is asked the time but doesnt want to be bothered.

Placeholder names in other languages

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

See also: Zhang San

In Chinese, question words are used as placeholders. An unspecified object is shénme or shénme shénme (Simplified Chinese: 什么什么; Traditional Chinese: 什麼什麼) (literally, "what what"), an unspecified location is nǎlǐ (哪里) , literally "where," an unspecified person mǒu (某), literally "someone," and so on.

Danish

In Danish a common placeholder word is dims (derived from German Dings), used for small unspecified objects (gadgets).

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 has acquired a specific meaning in some compounds, like brakumi, "to embrace", from brako, "arm".

The placeholder suffix was originally devised as a catch-all derivation affix. Once affixes became routinely used as roots and inflected, um became a placeholder lexeme, which would take affixes of its own: umi "to thingummy", umilo "a thingummy tool", umado "thingummying" etc. The affix-turned-lexeme aĵo "thing" is also arguably a place holder, since it is less specific than the older lexeme objekto. afero "business" is a lexeme used as an astract placeholder.

The particle "ajn" (= "any") can also be used as a placeholder. A generic object may be referred as «io ajn» (anything, some thing), or «ajno» (informal); the forms "ajna" and "ajne" ("any kind of" and "in any way") are acceptable colloquial synthetic variants of the longer and more formal "ia ajn" and "iel ajn".

Finnish

Objects

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 technical objects and machinery. 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 oscillation, "shaking back and forth", in native speakers of Finnish. This is a word derivation of interrogative pronoun mikä (what) and suffix -tin, referring to a tool or device. It basically denotes the same as English whatsit.

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 "tillbehörig" (that which is included), 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). Tilpehööri is always clearly useful and needed to something; unnecessary, unneeded or obscure small items are called höhä or sälä.

Location

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. A faraway place can be found in Pippurlandia, which translates as "pepper-land"; "as far as the pepper grows". Other places, whose actual coordinates are unknown and obscure, but which clearly are far away, are Hornantuutti (chute of Hell), Huitsin-Nevada and Vinku-Intia.

Time

Obscurity in time can be expressed as viidestoista päivä (fifteenth day). Tuohikuussa pukinpäivän aikaan refers to an obscure future date (literally at Buck's day on Barkember). "Nappisodan aikaan" refers to something that happened a long time ago. (literal meaning is "at the time of the button wars")

People

Placeholders for people include the ubiquitous Matti Meikäläinen (male) and Maija Meikäläinen (female), and the relatively less common Anna Malli (literally Anna the Model, but can also be understood as "Give me an example"), Tauno Tavallinen ("Tauno the Ordinary") or Veijo Luuseri ("Veijo the Luser"). In official contexts, the initials N.N. are used. Placeholders for large numbers include ziljoona and biljardi. The latter is a portmanteau of miljardi (10⁹) and biljoona (10¹², see billion). It has an intentional double meaning, as the word also means "billiards", and can also mean 10¹⁵.

Military

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.), Senjanen (rendered from genitive Senjasen expanding into sen-ja-sen (this-and-that), Omanimi ("Private His-name") and Te ("Private You"). Any weapon, device or piece of equipment is called vekotin. This has actually pointed to the abbreviation VKT, Valtion Kivääritehdas (State Rifle Factory), and referred to pikakivääri (rapid fire rifle) VKT23, which originally was called vekotin.

IT

In information technology, a small program which is supposed to do one thing well, is called kilke. This word has a connotation of "makeshift". A software consisting of several kilke may be called tsydeemi (system). Another word for systems like this is judanssi.

A program that takes something as input and turns it into something other useful, but always human-readable information, is called pulautin. This is perhaps most often applied to web services that do this.

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.), thing

Quebec 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:

Far away rural places:

• St-Clinclin, St-Meumeu (far away rural region)
• Îles Moukmouk (Moukmouk Islands, some far away islands)

People

Common placeholder names for people are

• In slang: Tartampion, Machin, Machin-chose, Mec, Trucmuche, Chose-binne, Toto.
• In proceedings and other more formal settings: "X" (Monsieur X), "Y" etc. (see XYZ Affair)

In Québec, Pierre-Jean-Jacques is used to designate anyone and everyone at the same time, in the third person, in an informal context.

Time

To refer to an event that will never occur, it can be set "à la Saint-Glinglin".

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 or 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 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, Kuhdorf (lit. cow village, somewhat derogatory) and Kleinkleckersdorf or Kleinsiehstenich (lit. Small-can't-see) are in usage. Herr X. aus Y. an der Z., which derives from usage in newspapers, is being used occasionally. 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 for people are used, tade (original meaning was 'these here') and deina (which has been a placeholder since antiquity). 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 improvised, derived from pronouns, such as tetoios "such", apotetoios "the from-such", apaftos, o aftos "the that" or o etsi "the like-that". For locations, stou diaolou ti mana "at the devil's mother" serves as a placeholder for a distant place.

Hebrew

In Hebrew, the word זה (zeh, meaning 'this') is a placeholder used in place of any noun. The most popular personal name placeholders are מה-שמו (mahshmo) or 'whatsisname' (thus: 'Tell mahshmo to put the zeh on the zeh'), מֹשֶׁה (Moshe = Moses) and יוֹסִי (Yossi, diminutive form of Joseph) for first name, and כֹהֵן (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 army is פִיזְדֶלוֹך (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).

Especially older Ashkenazi speakers often employ the Yiddish placeholders "Chaim Yankel" and "Moishe Zugmir".

Buzaglo (a typical Moroccan-Jewish last name) is a placeholder for a simple lower-class citizen. The term Buzaglo test was coined by then-Attorney General Aharon Barak in the 1970s to denote the criterion that a law should apply with equal leniency (or severity) to a senior public official and to the simplest ordinary citizen.

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

Irish

In Irish, the common male name "Tadhg" is part of the very old phrase "Tadhg an dá thaobh" (Tadhg of the street) which combines features of the English-languages phrases "average Joe" and "man on the street".

This same placeholder name, trasnfered to English-language usage and now usually rendered as Taig, became and remains a vitriolic derogatory term for an Irish Catholic and has been used by Unionists in Northern Ireland in such bloodthirsty slogans as "If guns are made for shooting, then skulls are made to crack. You’ve never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his back" and "Don’t be vague, kill a Taig".

Unlike Paddy, another derogatory placeholder name for an Irish person, lack the sharpness of Taig is often used in a jocular context or incorporated into mournful pro-Irish sentiment (i.e. the songs Poor Paddy On The Railway and Paddy's Lament), the term Taig remains a slur in almost every context. "Biddy" (from the name "Bridget") is a female equivalent placeholder name for Irish females.

Also note that the Hiberno-English placeholder names noted above (Yer man, Yer one and Himself/Herself) are long-established idioms derived from the syntax of the Irish language. Yer man and "yer one" are a half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, mo dhuine, literally "my person".

Italian

In Italian the standard placeholders for inanimate objects are roba (literally "stuff"), coso (related to cosa, thing), affare (literally "business"), and aggeggio (literally "device", "gadget").

A very often used term is also "vattelapesca" ( = "go to catch it" ) , especially for strange objects.

For people, common words are tizio, tipo (literally, "type", in slang), 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 (in slang), una.

Also there are specific terms (from ancient Roman typical male names) for six unnamed people, coming from the bureaucratic and jurisprudential texts: Tizio, Caio, Sempronio, Mevio, Filano and Calpurnio; but only the first three are used in current speech. 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); fare le ore piccole (to do the little hours) is used when you stay up very late in the night. Alla buon'ora (at the good time) means very early in the morning or, in a laughing tone, the contrary.

Alle calende greche (on Greek kalendae), domani (tomorrow) or similar expressions mean "never". Ad ogni morte di papa (on every death of a pope) means "rarely".

For numbers are used cinquantaquattro (54), cinquantaquattromila (54000), diecimila (10000)... For age is used anta (from the final of quaranta (40), cinquanta (50), sessanta (60), settanta (70), ottanta (80), novanta (90)) to mean this band of age: essere sugli anta (to be about ...ty years old) is used.

Often, Canicattì is used to refer to a place far away and difficult to reach (even though that's the name of a real town in Sicily). Also, mainly in Sicily, one can say: dove ha perso le scarpe il Signore (where Our Lord lost his shoes) or dove ha perso la camicia Cristo (where Christ lost his shirt).

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. Similarly, daredare (だれだれ, doubled form of who) can be used for people, and nantoka nantoka (なんとかなんとか, doubled form of something) as a variant for things. Hoge (ほげ, 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”.

As educated Dutch and Belgian people of an older generation commonly learned Latin in school, formal writing in (especially older) Dutch uses almost as much Latin as the lawyer's English, and, for instance, "N.N." was and is commonly used as a "John Doe" placeholder in class schedules, grant proposals, etc.

Emperor Justinian's codification of Roman law follows the custom of using "Titius" and "Seius" as names for Roman citizens, and "Stichus" and "Pamphilus" as names for slaves.

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.

Marathi

In Marathi the complete generic name (First Middle Surname) for a male is 'Aamajee Gomaajee Kaapse' (आमाजी गोमाजी कापसे) like 'John Doe' in English. The other generic first names for men include 'Somya-Gomya' (सोम्या-गोम्या) like 'Tom-Dick-Harry' in English.

Norwegian

In Norwegian the placeholder names for people are Ola and Kari Nordmann (male and female, respectively).

Polish

In Polish, the most popular placeholders are to coś (meaning this something), cudo (miracle), dynks (from the German Ding) and wihajster (from the German wie heisst er? - what's its name?). There are also other terms, such as elemelek, pipsztok or psztymulec, but they are much less common. 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. A vulgar, but frequently used term to describe a small and dull place is Zadupie which is an equivalent of English shithole.

A universal placeholder name for a person is Jan Kowalski (for a man) and Janina Kowalska (for a woman; used less often, sometimes with a different first name). A second unspecified person would be called Nowak, choice of first name being left to the author’s imagination, often also Jan for a man; this surname is unisex. Jan is the most popular male first name in Polish, Kowalski and Nowak are the most popular Polish surnames. In logical puzzles fictitious surnames frequently follow a uniform pattern: they start with consecutive letters of Latin alphabet and are followed by identical root: Abacki, Babacki, Cabacki etc. for men, Abacka, Babacka, Cabacka etc. for women. In official documents however, an unidentified person’s name is entered as NN (abbreviation of Nazwisko Nieznane – name unknown).

Portuguese

Common placeholders for objects in Brazilian Portuguese are treco, lance, coisa and negócio, among others. In European Portuguese coiso or cena are often used. Placeholder names for people are usually Fulano (optionally surnamed de Tal), Cicrano and Beltrano, and the corresponding feminines (Fulana, Cicrana, Beltrana). Gajo is also used. João das Couves, José dos Anzóis or José da Silva are also used, the feminine being Maria (instead of José, which is also often abbreviated to Zé). João Ninguém or Zé Ninguém are used for someone who is unimportant. Cascos-de-rolha (cork hooves) is used to designate a remote and uninteresting location. Onde o diabo perdeu as botas (where the Devil lost his boots) is a very far away place. "Cu-de-Judas" (Judas' ass) is used for the same as "Cascos-de-Rolha", but is considered more un-polite. Also, like English fuck described above, Brazilian Portuguese has the offensive general-purpose porra, being a placeholder for objects, actions, adjectives and other.

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. La mama dracului ("at the devil's mother") also means very remote place.

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 ("New Fucking Village") (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. Василий 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-llame ("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, also using the word madre which in most of the contexts has the same function as the word 'shit' in English, the word wey (from buey) used between young people to refer each other. In Chilean Spanish the word Weon (from Huevón) is often used to speak about any kind of people, from friends, to unknown persons. It can also be considered an insult if used unproperly. The word Wea (from Huevada) is used to refer to anything else where weon cannot be used. 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 Ciclano and 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. For approximations, "pico" can be added for time ("las cuatro y pico" for an undefined time between 4:00 and 5:00) or quantity ("treinta y pico" for thirtysomething). The actress Lina Morgan used to answer with taytantos ("ty-something") when asked about her age. Another number, usually used to express a high speed when driving is "cientoquinientos" (hundred-five hundred).

Swedish

Swedish has a large 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 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 Kalle for boys and Lisa for girls, Anna and Maria for women, Johan and Anders for men and Svensson (Svensson is a common Swedish surname, which is 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.). "Ivır zıvır" is a common kadigan for "various stuff". Kadigans for persons exist in abundance, one example being "Sarı Çizmeli Mehmet Ağa" ("Mehmet Aga with yellow boots") which generally is used to mean "unknown person". In addition, otherwise meaningless words such as "zımbırtı" and "zavazingo" are used similarly to the English words "gadget" and "gizmo", but not necessarly related to technology.

Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, Nguyễn Văn A and Trần Thị B are usually used as placeholder names for a male and female, respectively, due to the ubiquity of the family names Nguyễn and Trần 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, zams^jada, 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".

The Talmudic placeholder names Ploni and Almoni (see under Hebrew) are also used; more specifically Yiddish placeholder names are Chaim Yankel (Yankel is the Yiddish diminutive of Jacob/Yaaqov) and Moishe Zugmir (literally: Moses Tell-Me).

Yoruba

In Yoruba, Lagbaja and Temedu are the most common placeholder names.

See also

• Metasyntactic variable
• Sampo
• John Doe
• Generic you

References

• Espy, W., An Almanac of Words at Play (Clarkson Potter, 1979) ISBN 0-517-52090-7
• Flexner, S. B. and Wentworth, H., A Dictionary of American Slang; (Macmillan, 1960) ASIN B000LV7HQS