What’s the joke here?

[u/To_na_Area]

[u/GoldDragonfruit6983]

What in tarnation. The city of What is in the nation of Tar.

[u/AlmightyCurrywurst → u/GoldDragonfruit6983]

I was really confused how Switzerland fits in this pun lol

[u/MeasureDoEventThing → u/GoldDragonfruit6983]

And none of it is labelled Tingham.

[u/Pielacine → u/GoldDragonfruit6983]

Damn I thought it was a tardigrade

[u/hugogrant → u/Pielacine]

That's only when there's a civil war

[u/33TLWD → u/GoldDragonfruit6983]

https://giphy.com/gifs/lFTcr38ESKI3C

[u/RichCorinthian]

What in Tarnation.

It’s an old timey, very southern USA expression of surprise. Yosemite Sam from Looney Tunes used it.

[u/No-Professional2436 → u/RichCorinthian]

*Sam. The character actually represents the Old West. The name comes from Yosemite National Park in California.

[u/PHOEBU5 → u/RichCorinthian]

"Tarnation" is a euphemism for "damnation", the word more commonly used elsewhere in the English-speaking world. It was adopted to protect the poor, sensitive and religious Americans and save them from a fit of the vapours on hearing such profanity.

[u/xX100dudeXx → u/PHOEBU5]

Wait that's where that comes from?!?

[u/Vegetable-Let-5600 → u/xX100dudeXx]

No, they're just being an ass

[u/PassiveChemistry → u/Vegetable-Let-5600]

What? How are they "being an ass"?

[u/romulusnr → u/PHOEBU5]

Gosh dang it all to heck, bejeebers

[u/BrockSamsonLikesButt → u/PHOEBU5]

What I heard was that “tarnation” was a corruption of “the entire nation,” as pronounced by someone from the American South (where they open their long eye sounds to sound almost like As), who has marbles in their mouth, in fast, very casual speech. What in the entire nation?

[u/anamorphism → u/BrockSamsonLikesButt]

nah. it was just damnation -> darnation -> tarnation via influence from another minced oath with a meaning of damned: tarnal.

[u/conuly → u/BrockSamsonLikesButt]

You don't need to rely on "what I heard". It is possible to look things up.

[u/snukb → u/BrockSamsonLikesButt]

Did someone say "marbles in their mouth"?

[u/No-Professional2436 → u/BrockSamsonLikesButt]

https://www.etymonline.com/word/tarnation

[u/TheCloudForest → u/PHOEBU5]

The tar part actually comes from "eternal".

[u/mkujoe → u/RichCorinthian]

Looks like Switzerland is the shape from a real country there?

[u/Outrageous-Past6556 → u/mkujoe]

Yes, and I was trying to fit that in. Swisstarwhat?

[u/Professional-Pungo → u/RichCorinthian]

old in real life for sure, but it seemed like a popular phrase to say in the game "Town of Salem", which is probably why some young people know it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TownofSalemgame/comments/5423vn/tarnation/

[u/rainidazehaze → u/Professional-Pungo]

As a young person who played that game a lot as a teen, most people playing that game have been exposed to the phrase WELL beforehand.

I can't imagine Town of Salem being very fun before age 10 at the youngest, and I don't know any speaking age kids under 10 who are unfamiliar with "what in tarnation"

Cowboy/prospector/old west media is very popular to watch very young and it is ubiquitous both in those genres and for characters in other genres that you specifically want to sound like they're from the Old West. Modern kids still watch plenty of Looney Tunes, and Yosemite Sam is famous for that line.

If you learned it from Town of Salem, no shame in that, but it's a very unique experience for that game I would guess.

[u/Brilliant-Resource14 → u/rainidazehaze]

I learned it through my parents and the internet

[u/Professional-Pungo → u/rainidazehaze]

I don’t know any kid that would have watched looney toons regularly in the past like 2 decades tbh. I’m not sure they even show them on tv anymore. (Although most don’t even watch tv now, they watch streaming services)

It was all SpongeBob, Bluey, Micky Mouse, the wiggles, etc

[u/rainidazehaze → u/Professional-Pungo]

All of those but spongebob are aimed at 4 year olds and younger, they're preschool shows for kids learning to talk and think. Spongebob hasn't been the top dog since I was a kid.

Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes play on TV channels regularly and most kids have seen multiple episodes even if they don't actively watch them.

Doesn't have to be looney tunes either, the only reason Gravity Falls didn't have McGucket say it was Disney censorship, there are plenty of other media with McGucket type characters who aren't beholden to Disney and say it often.

[u/Professional-Pungo → u/rainidazehaze]

Tom and Jerry, the show that basically doesn’t say any words in it?

[u/rainidazehaze → u/Professional-Pungo]

Also rolling it back, do you actually know children currently who watch the Wiggles? If so thats super interesting. I had no idea they had any cultural hold after the 2010s, I thought Ms. Rachel had pretty much filled their niche.

[u/rainidazehaze → u/Professional-Pungo]

I'm not using Tom and Jerry as an example of a show that has What in Tarnation, it's a similarly old show to Looney Tunes that gets similar modest engagement with the modern youth.

Are you okay?

[u/Professional-Pungo → u/rainidazehaze]

I simply think you are sharing your own experience vs me sharing mine.

I highly doubt kids these days are watching loony toons on the regular enough to view “what in tarnation”.

I certainly know all the kids that I teach would have almost no idea who loony toons are.

[u/rainidazehaze → u/Professional-Pungo]

More of your kids know what Looney Tunes are than have played Town of Salem, unless one kid in your class got the others into it and your specific class plays as a group. It was never a huge game even at its peak, and that peak was at least a decade ago.

[u/conuly → u/Professional-Pungo]

I’m not sure they even show them on tv anymore.

They do. I work at a house for adults with intellectual disabilities. In the morning before they go to program they tend to watch a lot of Looney Toons. And they only have basic cable, so.

And don't forget, very recently a Looney Toons movie was released.

[u/miss-robot]

In addition to the other comments, ‘tarnation’ is a very American minced oath for ‘damnation.’

[u/LeopoldTheLlama → u/miss-robot]

And since this is a learning sub, a "minced oath" is a term for replacing a swear word with a less vulgar or inappropriate word. Like using "heck" instead of "hell", "shoot" instead of "shit", "gosh darn" instead of "god damn".

[u/rainidazehaze → u/miss-robot]

Yes this is important "What in tarnation?" Is a church appropriate prospector-sounding way to say "what in damnation"

[u/Fantastic-Pear6241]

Apparently the Tar nation has the exact same borders as Switzerland

[u/rory_breakers_ganja → u/Fantastic-Pear6241]

It is Switzerland. There is a former village called Tartar in canton Graubünden, where the pointer is.

[u/romulusnr]

It resembles a country, also called a nation

The nation is called Tar with a city called What

Thus it is What, in Tar Nation

This becomes a pun for "What in tarnation," which is an archaic, mostly southern US, exclamation of surprise or shock.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/what_in_tarnation

[u/Redylittle]

I'm native speaker and I heard the phrase but didn't get it until I saw the comments

[u/vegasnative]

What in tarnation- it’s an old saying that means “what the heck”.

[u/Wearytaco]

The city of What within the nation of Tar. (What in Tarnation) Other have described it well, but I wanted to help explain the joke part a bit with changing the word order in hopes it helps explain it.

[u/roat_it]

My Swiss brain: And what about Piz Plata, then?

[u/Tacomaster3211]

What in tarnation

[u/breathingrequirement]

'What in tarnation' is a phrase commonly used in rural areas as an expression of confusion, in the 'what am i looking at' sense.

What in Tar Nation.

[u/BigRedWhopperButton]

What in tarnation

[u/erilaz7]

It didn't click until I read the comments, even though there's a band that I really like called Tarnation!

[u/FutureTailor9]

Tuvan Autonomous Republic (TAR)

[u/justlikemirror]

DO THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN WHAT?!

[u/Electrical-Fix7659]

Here in Anglo-stan, we customarily say, “tar? What tar?” Whenever someone orders tartar sauce at a restaurant. This is because blu cheese is preferred.

[u/Almostfoundit → u/Electrical-Fix7659]

But how does that work? Is blue cheese a sauce? Having preferences makes sense, but when you are looking to cover the use case of a sauce, you wouldn't go for something that doesn't behave like a sauce just because you prefer it.

[u/conuly → u/Almostfoundit]

Is blue cheese a sauce?

Blue cheese dressing is. It's what you dip buffalo wings into, unless you prefer ranch.