the.com/backwoods

Where the pavement gives up and the opinions get stronger.

means Remote, heavily wooded areas far from towns or cities — and by extension, the unsophisticated, old-fashioned ways of people who live there.

from A straightforward American compound from 'back' + 'woods,' first describing the forested frontier territory lying 'back' beyond settled areas — back of the cleared land, back of civilization's edge. It appears in American English as colonists pushed inland, and quickly picked up its figurative sense: 'backwoods' came to describe not just a place but a mentality, used (often by city folks, often unfairly) to mean unrefined, isolated, or behind the times.

original sense
literally the forest behind settled land
connotation shift
geography became an insult about sophistication
also a cigar brand
named for the same rustic image
not always rural
any isolated, old-fashioned mindset qualifies now
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