BadgeIsBack

Agree. I think things have to be pretty bad for people to really take offence at Pom, and even then the problem lies elsewhere.

vickys

We're from Bamber Bridge for now, WILL be in NSW as soon as house sale permits. Then i can see what it's like ot be called a Pom

vicki t

does anyone know where the term pom comes from?

when/if we finally get there i wont mind being referred to as a pom, its the 'whinging' bit i am dreading..

flodsfive

There's been a thread on here before about it.

As far as I'm aware P (prisoner) O (off) M (mother) E (England)

Two connotations old fashioned (200 years ago) being basically convict, More modern interpretation meaning a prisoner I guess off the heart, or apron strings to England. I guess alot of people who use the word Pom would'nt know the heritage of the word, it's just a word for a person originating from England.

FR2PERTH

Hi, this is our first post here, just paid our 173 visa 2nd VAC last week still waiting for the OFFICIAL LETTER.

POM - Back in the days of transportion to the colonies, all transportion prisoners were 'processed' in MILLBANK PRISON (est 1812 on the left bank of the Thames near Vauxhall Bridge) in London before being shipped to Australia and when thery arrived they wore uniforms with P.O.M (prisoner of MILLBANK) on their backs. The locals all therefore called them POMs/'ies.

Hope this clears up.

Regards

J&J

PaulandNic

Sounds good, just NEVER heard that one before! ...

Welcome all the same ...

flodsfive

Wow, never heard that before, thanks for that

Oh and welcome

DunRoaminTheUK

And it's aboooot time people recognised the fact EH?

DunRoaminTheUK

It's all harmless fun (a bit like a semi-hard punch in the back of the head) but I've always thought (and I don't mind being called a "pom") that it's actually Australians who are, strictly speaking, descendants of "poms", therefore they're more "pom" than British people. The lineage split back in the late 1700's. The original "poms" helped establish Australia.

My family's ancestry has no connection with being incarcerated at his majesty's pleasure.

Just nit-picking.

MartinLuther

Sounds good but POM was never used back in convict times.

There are a few theories but the pomegranate one seems to have the most support. Have a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alterna..._British#Pommy

It has been retrofitted as Prisoner of Mother England (i.e. the English are prisoners being held in England) but is often misinterpreted by some poms as Prisoners from Mother England which is meaningless as the pom refers to the English not the Aussies (i.e. they've missed the reversal of the convict "joke").

northernbird

Particularly as a lot of the original convicts weren't actually English but Irish.

MartinLuther

A lot were Irish but most were English. I think there was at least 1 Canadian and 1 West Indian as well. Not many Welsh though as we were obviously more law-abiding and community minded

DunRoaminTheUK

Maybe the sheep stopped the devil from finding work for idle hands?

Nice Guy

I can honestly say that with the exception of one occasion the POM bit is just mild banter.

The exception was angrily put towards myself and a Kiwi friend.

The Australian chap was throughly unpleasant and very nasty towards the Kiwi friend making offensive remarks about NZ.

As a New Zealander I also took offense but when the chappie in question heard my English accent he then proceeded to launch a tirade of vitriolic offensive and nasty abuse towards me about POMs.

Most unlike me, I offered the fellow outside as did my Kiwi friend, he declined any action and continued his abuse.

We squared up and he ran away.

Not surprisingly some other Australian chappies that were present at the event also took offense..................against the Australian perpetrator, referring to him as a racist bastard and one or two other names that cannot be printed on the shallow website.

Got a few drinks out of that one and some new Australian mates............result!

Kim67

My convict ancestors were both English and Irish. But don't think because you've only just arrived, you don't come from Convict ancestory - my husband was born in UK and our kids are first generation aussies on his side, but he's since find a couple of his GG or GGG Grandfathers that were transported as convicts to oz (leaving families in England) and then going on to have other family's here. So My husband has found that a couple of small towns on the Mid-Coast of NSW are full of his australian relatives.