Learn English – the etymology of the word “dinlo”

Summary

Bumfuck, Egypt is first documented in army slang from 1972, and BFE is from at least 1988. Bumfuck, [Egypt] appears to be the original, followed by variations Bumblefuck (1989), Bubblefuck (1993) and Buttfuck (1999).

Sometimes these variations appear standing alone, sometimes in Egypt, or Africa (also found in BFA), or another country, (rural) state or place, and sometimes prefixed by East or West. More recently, both BFN and Butt Fucking Nowhere are reported from 2002.

As Bumfuck, Egypt appears to be originally military slang, given the number of abbreviations they used I can easily believe it was also jocularly and euphemistically shortened to BFA before 1988.

Partridge

The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Uncoventional English (2003):

BFE noun any remote location. An abbreviation of BUMFUCK, EGYPT US 1989

Bumblefuck noun any remote, small town US 1989

Bumfuck, Egypt noun a mythical town that is the epitome of remoteness. With variants US 1972

It also gives BFN and Butt Fucking Nowhere, both from 2002.

OUP

These 1989 and 1972 first citations are given with others in The F-Word (2009, Oxford University Press):

BFE noun [Bumfuck (or Bumbfuck), Egypt]

Military & Students. a very remote place; the middle of nowhere.

1989 P. Munro U.C.L.A. Slang 20: Troy...lives out in B.F.E....Bum Fuck, Egypt.

Bumfuck noun

Military & Students. a very remote place. --used with a placename, esp. in Bumfuck, Egypt. Also Bumfuckistan. Jocular. See also BFE, BUMBLEFUCK.

1972 Sgt. E-6, U.S. Army: They probably sent those records out to Bumfuck, Egypt.

It also gives Bumblefuck as a 1989 alteration of Bumfuck; Bubblefuck as a 1993 alteration of Bumblefuck; and Buttfuck, usually used with a placename, from 1999.

Usenet

I found an earlier example for the initials BFE in Usenet, on 11th September 1988 in alt.cyberpunk:

$600 is about what we paid for my first computer -- a C64, 1541 and printer; when I was a upper-lower class kid living in the backwoods of BFE, Leesville, Louisiana. (Ft. Polk sux too. :-). We weren't on welfare, but we weren't rich either. I think we saved about 9-12months for the computer. (Grandparents bought me a monitor a month later. What a rescue. :-). That computer made the difference between me being a dual major CompSci/Journalism student in Houston instead of being like my cousins: 2-4 kids, HS diploma at best, slow paying job, no future, and living in BFE, Louisiana.

In rural America, which was an agrarian society originally, people did not have indoor plumbing and instead used an outhouse. They didn't have toilet paper either, so they had to use whatever was at hand. Corncobs were often used for the purpose. That's how they came to be associated with the rectum.

EDIT: What I said above was related to me by my grandfather, who grew up in a farming community in Illinois in the early 20th century. So it may be folk etymology. Etymonline.com differs somewhat, although I find their explanation bizarre (and note that it is qualified with the word "apparently" — apparently what?

cornhole synonymous with "do anal intercourse" by 1930s, apparently the reference is to a game played in the farming regions of the Ohio Valley in the U.S. from 19c., in which players take turns throwing a small bag full of feed corn at a raised platform with a hole in it.

FURTHER EDIT:

Etymonline offers no explanation for how "anal intercourse" became associated with an innocuous game. Was there a gay culture on the down-low in farming communities, one that staged mock games of what amounts to bean-bag tossing to cover up homosexual orgies? That seems ridiculous.