Painterly weathered signpost with opposing blank arrows in cracked dry ground.

Original artwork, not a still

Alexander Woollcott

A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn't be.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The joke defines a provincial town by its lack of tempting places to misbehave. Having nowhere you 'shouldn't be' means having no appealing forbidden destination. It reverses the usual praise of respectability, treating a shortage of disreputable possibilities as a sign of dullness.

Context reviewed

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