September 7, at pm. The Cult of New Zealand Infallible — healthy patriotism or sinister brainwashing? April 11, at pm. Tom Brady says:. May 3, at pm. Pom says:. January 5, at pm. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.
Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Join other followers. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. The latter two are particularly unconvincing as an additional letter has to be swallowed up in the process.
Another theory is that it derives from Portsmouth, the port from which the convict ships set out, a city often known as Pompey. Perhaps the first syllable of the nickname gave rise to the term for Brits? Alternatively, it could be a reference to their port of arrival, Port of Melbourne? I am troubled by these explanations. Why would the early settlers, the majority of whom were British, use a term which is intended to differentiate incomers from those who had been born and raised Down Under?
It smacks of convenient retro-fitting to me. Moving away from the world of convicts, another theory is that it is an abbreviation of pommes de terre , the spud being a staple and favourite part of the diet of the British troops during the First World War. Granted it was the first occasion that men from the two nations spent much time in close proximity but it requires a stretch of the imagination to think that the Aussies, inventive in their use of language as they are, made this linguistic jump.
And, anyway, the term Pom was used before the Great War, the earliest instances cited in the Oxford English Dictionary dating to But if it is not the potato, it may well be another species of the plant world: Punica granatum — or the pomegranate, to you and I.
These fruits, between the size of a lemon and a grapefruit, have a characteristic which might hold the key: when they ripen in the sun, they go red — rather like the newly-arrived immigrants after they arrived, pasty-faced and somewhat green about the gills. First, we need to understand a bit of the argot of the docks in Melbourne. Thanks everyone for your replies so far. It goes without saying that the teabags were also another issue for weekly rantings.
I forgot to say earlier the other thing is those people who wear there england football shirt like a badge of honour even when they've moved to a new country and only hang out with other british so they can spend their nights whinging about how boring the place is and how unfriendly the locals are duhhhhh Now thats a bit harsh!!!
You must remember that the Ozzies are totally new animals to the most of us, and they sure are not going to understand our problems with moving to OZ as most of them have lived in OZ all their lives and will proberbly see a lot of our challenges as being criticism.
So we are going to need Pommie friends to whinge with, In my case South Africans and Ozzie friends to stretch our boundaries and form some stability in a new country. Hello Webweasel I take your point but isn't the problem by wearing your shirt its going to send the wrong statement to the ozzies surely youve chosen to move to their country so you should support them instead of holding on to the past. She loved Rhodesia as it was then. My brother is a Zimbabwean having been born there and now he is an Aus.
It was very hard for migrants when Mum and Dad did it gosh my kids are grown, no phoning home, no skype, no ability to return home. Now mum is nearly 90 however she did not take out Aus citizenship until after my children were born guess she had to give up the whinging and stay then :smile:. That said they lived in every State of Australia returned to NZ came back to Australia this was after I was grown up thank goodness always looking for that elusive shangrila which does not exist.
So when I read of others who are pinging and ponging I know what its like and you know its because deep down the people involved are unhappy, if one is happy with their lot anywhere is home. Only thing is its a good job we decided to come and live in Aus I had married and returned to the UK, if we had stayed no doubt Mum and Dad would have returned and been very very miserable and my poor brother who is 13 years younger than me would have been dragged along to yet another school.
I don't actually wear my Rugby shirt because I support the Springboks, it is more like an Identity to me, In the UK I have never had a problem with my Springbok colours but maybe in OZ there might be some offence taken, seeing that the Ozzies get quite sore when they are beaten at sport! I dunno we will just have to see. In the end I will never be an Ozzie, Africa runs to deep in a person once you have lived there for any length of time. Hope fully the best of all 3!! Yep, I reckon your dad's comment is the epitome of a whinging pom no offence to your dad :- Funny how you've remembered it all these years later - must have struck a cord.
You would think that by now the Aussies would have got it right and got those sausages and teabags up to our standard:biglaugh:. We would do it in our own country so why stop cos we have emigrated?? Yes i know we shouldnt but its on a par with giving up smoking-soooo difficult to do!! I think at some point every new migrant and some not so new will be called a winging pom ,to be honest i laugh at it ,even the simplest negative sentance will be thrown back as pommy winging ,,if its an aussie who tells you ,shoot him down like i do with the old saying..
If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place If you get a chance,take it, If it changes your life,let it. Nobody said it would be easy they just said it would be worth it As migrants I think you're drawn to your own at times because of a shared identity, it doesn't mean you don't want to be in Aus but want to remember some of the good things about your home country.
Settling into a new country, new way of life, new ways of doing things I think this is a natural thing. As time goes by you want those things less and less or find alternatives. I just want PIO to be a happy place where people are nice to each other and unicorns poop rainbows. That's how we've found it personally I would have paid black market prices for Bisto Gravy when I arrived 20 months ago - now I can't remember why I wanted it so much because I've found something else I like lol.
We had a lads v dads soccer game on Saturday morning - all the dads arrived wearing club or international shirts - we had an England Rugby shirt, my hubby wore his PNE shirt, had a few all blacks a spring bok and the green and gold of Aus- it was really saying 'this is where I come from' and all taken good humour. As an aside.. In typical aussie style we had a 'family picnic' after the game and had a brilliant morning before going home to watch the grand final.
As a Geelong supporter, my neighbour was a little upset!
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