A woman who immigrated from the Philippines to the United States wonders: If you’re studying a second language and start dreaming in it, does that mean you’ve reached the point of fluency? English has adopted several words from her...
Erica from Troy, Tennessee, wonders if the word boondocks, meaning “a remote place” is related to the name of frontier explorer Daniel Boone. Out in the boondocks and out in the boonies, derive from the Tagalog word for...
Bundu is a Bantu word meaning “a largely uninhabited wild region far from town.” It was adopted into South African slang and ultimately into British English, and appears in the phrase out in the bundus, with the same meaning. Although it sounds like...
In Australian slang, Woop Woop is a joking term for any remote town, and if you want to denote someplace even more remote, you can describe it as 50 k south of Woop Woop. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Fifty Ks South of...
It’s likely America’s greatest linguistic export: O.K. A caller raised in the Philippines is curious about its origin. The hosts give him an answer, and also point out a familiar word in English that derives from the caller’s...
tulies n.pl.—Gloss: the boondocks or the middle of nowhere. Note: Out in the tules/tules means “out in the boondocks” or “far away.” Encarta says that “to be in deep tules” is a Hispanic English expression meaning “to be in...