Another word that US soldiers learned in the Philippines and brought home.

There are many hilarious terms for remote and presumably undesirable locales (the sticks, "BFE"*, Podunk, Outer Mongolia...). I never would have dreamed that "boondocks" was from a foreign language. I guess in the back of my mind I figured it had something to do with Daniel Boone.

*Bumfuck, Egypt

There really *is a Podunk, in upstate New York. This link tells us it means "swampy place," I'm guessing from one of the Iroquois languages. I understand the townsfolk don't put up an "Entering Podunk" sign any more because people keep stealing it.

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=1449

MA has Ponkapoag and Seekonk. The latter is from Indian word for skunk. I have read that Chicago meant "place of many skunks".

You know, there's those who like swamps and those who don't. I don't like swamps because there's a likelihood that you'll come across poison sumac. Now, staghorn sumac and shining sumac are two very nice American trees. But poison sumac is probably about the nastiest poisonous plant we've got here in the US--at least skinwise. I'll never forget my childhood babysitter, Diane Gibbs, going through a horrible bout with poison sumac. She was hospitalized--covered with horrible swellings filled with pus.

So, I don't like no podunks no how. Gators, I like; but forget them pus swellings in the hospital.