Turd World

English

Etymology

Blend of turd +‎ Third World, in reference to the unsanitary conditions in the Third World. First use appears c. 1971-1972 in the Alternative Press Index.

Proper noun

the Turd World

1. (slang, offensive, humorous) The Third World.
   • 1972, Books and Bookmen, Volume 18, page 116:

     ... the dark continent and which has been referred to by Liam Ryan as the turd world.

   • 1979, Frank Jewett Mather, Frederic Fairchild Sherman, Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, Art in America, Volume 67, page 39:

     ... comes to Calcutta for the first time and, after a long look around, says, "Now I know why they call it the turd world."

   • 1982, Asiaweek Limited, Asiaweek, Volume 8, page 49:

     For him the quintessential India is an old man squatting to defecate beside the track, butt to the world, umbrella to ward off the sun, the very embodiment of what Theroux calls "the Turd World."

   • 1999, Ishmael Reed, The Terrible Threes, page 30:

     O, boss, why should you worry about dat? It's just a Turd World trick to embarrass you.

   • 2000, Elaine Yee Lin Ho, Timothy Mo, page 30:

     Third World becomes 'Turd World' in the novel's irrepresible scatology.

   • 2002 November 9, Joe User, “World's first attempt to keep out illegal aliens.”, in alt.org.audubon‎^[1] (Usenet):

     It has nothing to do with race, has to do with ethnicisity, there is a
     difference. The peoples of the turd world are dismal failures, their
     culture promoted reproducing to the point the environment can not
     sustain them at comfortable levels, the price of that historically has
     been death. It just so happens that the majority of the third world
     is non-white.

   • 2003 January 5, Michael Savage, The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture‎^[2], Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 57:

     You are part of the social system that they say oppresses and abuses Turd World nations.

   • 2004, Pittu Laungani, Asian Perspectives in Counselling and Psychotherapy, page 30:

     Even the phrase 'Third World' was maliciously referred to as 'turd world' by those who were opposed to any form of migration into Britain.

   • 2013 December 17, Caren Irr, Toward the Geopolitical Novel: U.S. Fiction in the Twenty-First Century (Literature Now)‎^[3], Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 77:

     In The Volunteer, no drama is provided by the tedium of daily labor or the struggle to wrest a livelihood from a damaged habitat in what is called throughout the novel the “turd world.” The developing world is excrementitious for Coleman's supposedly ironic protagonist because he has experienced an ego-shattering loss that makes him feel that his own life has been wasted.

   • 2017, Elizabeth Martínez, De Colores Means All of Us, Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century, page 31:

     Opposition to multiculturalism can still be heard in attacks on the "mud people" and we can still read campus newspaper letters like the one from tenured economics professor Ernest Bucholz (now retired) at Santa Monica College opposing multiculturalism because it promotes the "Turd-World".

   • 2018, Paul Vlitos, Eating and Identity in Postcolonial Fiction Consuming Passions, Unpalatable Truths, page 31:

     'What a tip! Talk about the Turd World!' comments one Australian character on arrival in the Philippines.

   • 2019, R. Zamora Linmark, The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart, page 9:

     That only happens during election, and only if the current leader is seeking reelection. We're very Turd World that way.

   • 2023, Phil Clarke, Falling Night:

     He was a real visionary, you know, and did so much for this ungrateful turd world country.

Alternative forms

• turd world