Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Boondocks

Boondocks \BOON-doks\ , noun;
1. A remote rural area (usually preceded by "the")
2. An uninhabited area with thick natural vegetation, as a backwoods or marsh

According to Etymonline.com:
This word is a recent entry to the English language, only dating to the 1910's. It comes from Tagalog bundok, which means "mountain." It was adopted by occupying GI's in the Philippines for "remote and wild place." The word was readopted, or possibly just reinforced, during World War II. Other adaptations are boondockers ("shoes suited for rough terrain," 1953) and boonies, which is a colloquial shortening by U.S. troops in the Vietnam war used to reference the rural areas of that country.

This is not an uncommon way for languages to adopt foreign words, in fact some Philippinos still call westerners jurs, from soldiers because of the amount of time foreigners have spent occupying that country.

*Today's word and the first definition were both taken from Dictionary.com's 'Word of the Day' for Wednesday, December 15

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