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by jrm4 1419 days ago
Ha, I'm an American who's reasonably proficient in Spanish and my brain did quickly see "Magic Culo."
2 comments

The term cul-de-sac is not that uncommon in American English, given the amount of suburbs having them.
Really wondering about the origin of that phrase. The literal translation is "ass of bag"?
Fun fact: Tolkien hated English "borrowing" words from other languages that we had already - so he named his hero Bilbo Baggins (bag ends) of Bag End - where Bag End literally is the English for cul-de-sac (end of bag).
Since a bag ("sac") has no exit hole ("cul"), and so a "cul-de-sac" is a (I guess 2nd degree ?) way of saying "way with no exit".
If you translate (instead of ass) cul as "bottom", it is more like the "bottom of a sack" (i.e. no-exit), if your interpretation was correct, it would be a no-cul-de-sac.
Or "way with one exit, and it's behind you."
must be latin