backwoods vs the sticks

backwoods

noun
  • A remote or sparsely inhabited region, especially in North America; away from big towns and from the influence of modern life. 

  • Partly or wholly uncleared forest, especially in North America. 

adj
  • Rough, uncouth, coarse, or crude in social matters. 

  • Pertaining to the backwoods. 

the sticks

noun
  • A remote, rural area; a place that is removed from civilization such as the boondocks. 

  • The set of yardage markers used by a chain crew to indicate the ten yards between the line of scrimmage from the previous first down and the line to gain, which the offense must reach in their series of four downs in order to retain possession of the ball. 

How often have the words backwoods and the sticks occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )