# It was off the beaten track.



## Encolpius

Hello, we Hungarians and Russians, too, have an interesting idiom for the English phrase *off the beaten track* which means in a place not commonly visited. Do you have any (interesting) phrase in Polish? *gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc?? *Thanks.


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## zaffy

You could say 'Gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc", though I haven't used it even once in my life. In everyday language we say:
-na uboczu
-na odludziu
-w ustronnym miejscu
or colloquially, which I hear and use a lot, 'na zadupiu'


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## Encolpius

zaffy said:


> ... I haven't used it even once in my life.



But it is not very archaic, right? Would it be a 100zl question in Milionerzy?


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## zaffy

No, it is not archaic. But I believe idioms are generally rarely used. It definitely could be a warm-up question in that game show.


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## marco_2

We can also say, very formally, _z dala od uczęszczanych szlaków_, which resembles the English phrase most.


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## zaffy

marco_2 said:


> We can also say, very formally, _z dala od uczęszczanych szlaków_, which resembles the English phrase most.



I would say that when referring to mountain hiking only.


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## Ben Jamin

zaffy said:


> No, it is not archaic. But I believe idioms are generally rarely used. It definitely could be a warm-up question in that game show.


You mean all idioms?


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## jasio

Tam, gdzie wrony zawracają. 
- presumably because there is nothing interesting further on.


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## Franciszek Kolpanowicz

Encolpius said:


> Hello, we Hungarians and Russians, too, have an interesting idiom for the English phrase *off the beaten track* which means in a place not commonly visited. Do you have any (interesting) phrase in Polish? *gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc?? *Thanks.



What are the Hungarian and Russian idioms?


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## Franciszek Kolpanowicz

BTW, I did some Google queries and I found that the expression "Poza utartym szlakiem" seems to be quite common (54 300 results, many of those relating to a book with that title, but also used in other contexts).

"poza utartym szlakiem" - Google Search

"Z dala od utartych szlaków" also has a considerable amount of results.

Both have the same literal and metaphorical meaning as the English 'off the beaten track'.

I don't know if they can be qualified as idioms in Polish, though. Basic Google researched shows that there are different definitions of idiom. According to either of those from:

Idiom a frazeologizm - Poradnia językowa PWN

one could even argue that even English 'off the beaten track' is not an idiom, since you can infer the meaning of the expression from its parts.

On the other hand, using the definition from:

IDIOM | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary

you'd have to classify both as idioms.


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## Ben Jamin

Franciszek Kolpanowicz said:


> Idiom a frazeologizm - Poradnia językowa PWN
> 
> one could even argue that even English 'off the beaten track' is not an idiom, since you can infer the meaning of the expression from its parts.
> 
> On the other hand, using the definition from:
> 
> IDIOM | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary
> 
> you'd have to classify both as idioms.


Note that "idiom" in English has two separate meanings, and one of them (1) defines the same concept as the Polish definition does. The other one (2) means something different -  a particular way of expression  typical of a group or an individual. None of the two English definitions , in my opinion, cover the expression "out of the beaten track".
"Idiomatic" is also often used in the meaning "typical of a particular language", which in Polish could be rendered as "należący do zasobu frazeologicznego danego języka".


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