Boondocks

The boondocks is an American expression that stems from the Tagalog word bundok. It originally referred to a remote rural area, but now it is often applied to an out-of-the-way city or town considered backward and unsophisticated. It can also designate a 'mountain', or a small town in rural Hertfordshire.

The expression was introduced to English by U.S. military personnel fighting in the Philippine–American War (1899-1902). It derives from the Tagalog word "bundok", which means "mountain". According to military historian Paul A. Kramer, the term originally had "connotations of bewilderment and confusion", due to the guerrilla warfare in which the soldiers were engaged.

In the Philippines, the word bundok is also a colloquialism referring to rural inland areas, which are usually mountainous and difficult to access, as most major cities and settlements in the Philippines are located on or near the coastline. Equivalent terms include the Spanish-derived probinsiya ("province") and the Cebuano term bukid ("mountain"). When used generally, the term refers to a rustic or uncivilized area. When referring to people (taga-bundok or probinsiyano in Tagalog; taga-bukid in Cebuano; English: "someone who comes from the mountains/provinces"), it acquires a derogatory connotation of a stereotype of unsophisticated, ignorant, and illiterate country people.

The term has evolved into American slang used to refer to the countryside or any implicitly isolated rural/wilderness area, regardless of topography or vegetation. Similar slang or colloquial words are "the sticks", "the wops", "the chodes", "the backblocks", or "Woop Woop" in Australia and New Zealand, "" in South Africa, and "out in the tules" in California. The diminutive "boonies" can be heard in films about the Vietnam War such as Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989) used by American soldiers to designate rural areas of Vietnam.

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