I was listening to your "Bless your heart" episode today on the way to work, and someone called in with a question about "the back 40." It made me think of another couple of phrases I've heard people use to mean "a really long way away," and both of them involve Egypt.
If we go to a mall and had to park quite a distance away from the entrance, my friends might say, "We had to park all the way in East Egypt." A less G-rated version is "We had to park in Bumf*** Egypt."
What I'm wondering is, "Why Egypt?"
My parents said East Jabib for some unspecified distant place. I have no clue where that comes from. Your question makes me wonder if it is a corruption of Egypt.
While we are on the subject, where were the original boondocks or boonies?
And "yonder"?
When one of my friends first moved to my small, rural Alabama hometown from upstate New York, she and her mother both thought "Yonder" was a real place, because people kept telling them stuff was "over yonder."
Boy, were THEY embarrassed. Later. 🙂
My mother always used Tim-buk-tu as that place that is very far away.