take a wrong turn at Albuquerque
noun · first attested 1945
Bugs Bunny travels by tunnel, so one missed turn under New Mexico explains every wrong country he surfaces in.
To have gone badly off course, or to have ended up somewhere unintended.
35.0844°N -106.6503°W · Q34804
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1945
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Albuquerque
- In English
take a wrong turn at Albuquerque
The line comes from the Warner Brothers cartoon Herr Meets Hare (1945), in which Bugs burrows to Germany and says he knew he should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque. Writers reused it in later shorts until it became a standing joke, and it now appears in ordinary speech with either left or wrong. Albuquerque was a real decision point for cross-country drivers on Route 66.