I recently had reason to use the phrase "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" (my sister's fiancé is having a bachelor party), and then a few days later I read an Onion article titled "What Happens At Yucca Mountain Stays At Yucca Mountain". This got me to thinking that maybe it would be possible to roughly measure the reputation for depravity of a particular location by counting the number of Google hits for the phrase "what happens in PLACENAME stays in PLACENAME". The results below are an interesting catalog of spring break hotspots, gambling meccas, and other places where you're likely to embarrass yourself. Use it to plan your next vacation!
Methodology: I first searched for "what happens in * stays in *" (and also "what happens in * * stays in * *" to catch the two-word place names), which produces an overwhelming number of hits for "vegas", so I filtered this out by searching for "what happens in * stays in *" -vegas. I also tried searching for "whatever...", but there were few hits and so I decided to ignore that variation. I looked at the top couple of hundred hits, making a list of all the place names mentioned. Then I searched on the pattern for each place name I found, and made of note of the approximate number of Google hits.
Place Name | ghits | Comment |
Vegas | 13,000 | Vegas, baby! |
Dewey | 1,720 | Dewey Beach, Delaware—I had no idea |
Mexico | 948 | Possibly inflated by the Toby Keith song "Stays in Mexico" |
Cancun | 467 | +1 for "Cancún" |
Las Vegas | 312 | |
Neverland | 208 | The ranch, presumably—[shudder] |
the Keys | 191 | The Florida Keys |
Michigan | 190 | |
Thailand | 135 | |
Cabo | 115 | Cabo San Lucas, Mexico |
Jamaica | 73 | |
Miami | 55 | |
TJ | 47 | Tijuana, Mexico, also listed separately below |
Iraq | 46 | |
Fallujah | 34 | |
Amsterdam | 33 | |
Texas | 31 | |
Florida | 29 | |
Canada | 27 | |
Tokyo | 21 | |
London | 21 | |
Bangkok | 20 | |
Europe | 20 | |
Chicago | 20 | |
Whistler | 16 | Whistler, British Columbia |
Dallas | 15 | |
Tijuana | 14 | |
Daytona | 13 | |
DC | 13 | |
New York | 13 | |
Madison | 12 | |
Milwaukee | 12 | |
Reno | 11 | |
Korea | 11 | |
Louisiana | 10 | |
Africa | 10 | |
Bear Mountain | 10 | |
Havasu | 10 | Lake Havasu, AZ |
Boston | 9 | |
Padre | 8 | South Padre Island, TX |
NY | 8 | |
Boracay | 7 | Boracay Island, the Philippines |
Paris | 7 | |
Spain | 7 | |
Detroit | 6 | |
Garden Grove | 6 | |
Redmond | 6 | |
Bristol | 6 | |
Colorado | 5 | |
Minnesota | 5 | |
Seattle | 5 | |
Redondo Beach | 5 | |
Russia | 5 | |
Milan | 5 | |
Baghdad | 4 | |
Dayton | 4 | |
Japan | 4 | |
FL | 4 | Fort Lauderdale or Florida? |
Ybor | 4 | Tampa's Historic District |
Cleveland | 4 | |
Vancouver | 4 | |
Wisconsin | 3 | |
Morocco | 3 | |
New Hampshire | 3 | |
Berlin | 3 | |
Jackson | 3 | |
Cannes | 3 | |
Britain | 2 | |
Stockholm | 2 | |
Tobago | 2 | Trinidad: 0. Take that, Trinidad! |
Shinjuku | 2 | |
Barcelona | 2 | |
Oakland | 2 | This doesn't bode well for the 2005 LSA meeting |
Tribeca | 2 | |
Fort Lauderdale | 2 | |
Columbus | 2 | |
Olowalu | 2 | Maui |
Panama City | 2 | |
Camrose | 2 |
In addition to the examples with the real-world geographical names listed above, there were various other occurrences of the target sentence pattern, including ones with common noun phrases like "the class", "our room", "the limo", and also the more entertaining "Church camp" (WWJD?), "Spacecamp" (who knew?), "outbuildings" (eww), "Uranus", "Rumspringa", and "Britney" (heh).
So, based on this, it looks like our next vacation will be in Dewey, Delaware. Don't worry, you won't have to read a post about what happens there—I know the rule.
Delightful. The expression is not particular journalistic, so is it a legit snowclone?
You could also change the preposition. For "at" you get a number of convention names (SF and other), plus "band camp" and the like. For "on", there's the road, the bus, the cruise, the field, the pitch, the ship ... I didn't count them, though.
Posted by: chris waigl | November 23, 2004 at 05:03 PM
This...is...brilliant.
I'm wondering why it didn't pick up New Orleans (= 88 hits), my personal favorite spot for depraved behaviors. Another thing I thought an "on" instead of "in" search might turn up were islands, traditionally hotbeds of depravity. Instead it seems to mostly pick up things about Mars. I was unaware that anything at all happened on Mars, really.
Sidenote, it makes me kind of sad that Fallujah made the list (and is, in fact, the first hit! Even though it's lowculture, still...).
Posted by: polyglot conspiracy | November 24, 2004 at 09:41 AM
I suspect that at the root of all these expressions is the Alcoholics Anonymous saying "What's said in the room stays in the room", which of course is about verbal accounts of depravity rather than depravity itself.
I have even heard this given, absurdly, as a principle for meetings at work! The whole point of having meetings is so that those who are there can report back on "what is said".
Posted by: John Cowan | January 29, 2005 at 08:42 AM
Great post! Various synonyms for online/on the net turn up hits.
Plus a Navy guy I know says that what happens at sea stays at sea.
Posted by: Idle Fellow | February 15, 2005 at 06:03 PM
In a few cases (such as Detroit) shouldn't it be "What happens in $PLACENAME gets buried in a $PLACENAME empty lot"?
Posted by: Miles | February 15, 2005 at 06:35 PM
>Plus a Navy guy I know says that what happens
>at sea stays at sea.
I think I've heard about that. I seem to recall a quotation that mentions rum, the lash...and what was that middle thing again?
Posted by: The Tensor | February 15, 2005 at 07:07 PM
The 'middle thing' now prefers white wine, the lash is silken, and anything that happens at sea was probably on a Carnival cruise.
Posted by: aelfheld | February 18, 2005 at 04:36 PM
"What happens here, stays here" is the original slogan.
http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article.cfm?contentID=153971
"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" appears to be an offshoot.
Posted by: willyum | April 03, 2006 at 09:57 PM
Why is San Francisco not on this list?
Apparently, what happens in San Francisco eventually goes viral, and pretty soon, they're even doing it in Svalbard fergawdzakes.
Posted by: s9 | August 20, 2009 at 09:30 AM
Well as a Delaware native maybe I can shed some light on the Dewey Beach reference and the underlining homophobic discourse that gives meaning to the statement. In Delaware, Dewey Beach has been a popular destination for the gay population in the surroundings area since at least the time i was a kid (25 years). In addition to a famous "gay beach", Dewey has a number of bars and restaurants that are gay friendly and or gay owned. The remark what happens in Dewey stays in Dewey is obviously an allusion to "down low" behavior by supposedly straight men, or men who are straight but enjoy deviating from their normal sexual behavior. Either way the statement further stigmatizes and marginalizes homosexuality and assumes that there is something deviant or deprave in engaging in sexual acts with the same sex. This is not surprising i guess given the homophobic society we live in.
Posted by: Vincent Grady | August 20, 2009 at 11:11 AM