Also, the gramadoelas. An Afrikaans word, now accepted as a loan word in South African English.

It means roughly, a remote part of the countryside, the middle of nowhere, a remote, one-horse town, a place far removed from civilisation, the back of beyond, the boondocks, or the figurative sense of Outer Mongolia as an obscure or far-off place.

The first syllable is pronounced to rhyme with scrum, with a hard g sound.

It is more-or-less a mythical place name, a place (perhaps a steep mountain range, or an isolated valley) that could be, if you could only get there.


This write-up is dedicated to amnesiac, for asking how those of us already in Outer Mongolia refer figuratively to the middle of nowhere.