Perhaps you are being disingenuous? But on the off-chance that you're not, "pom" is Australian slang for the English. As in "whinging pom", or the more affectionate "pommy bastard".

I have no idea of the derivation of the word, perhaps it was "prisoners of mother England" or something of the sort? Might even be a product of the convict era?

My charming American spelling checker informs me that there is no such word as "whinge" or "whinging" in the American vocabulary either (gracious that is an impoverished vernacular.) "Complain" is a near translation.

That should be good for another bottle of plonk one day. ;-)

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas


At 1:05 PM -0400 29/5/02, Jonathan Julius Dobkin wrote:

>As someone who regularly wins bottles of wine at my local pub's weekly
>trivia night, I've actually heard the term "pom," and know it's oz-speak
>for "prisoners of" something; of what not even I can remember.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Bill Bartlett <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 7:04 pm
>Subject: [CHOMSKY] Bully for Australia, when it stands up for itself
>
>> http://www.theage.com.a
>>
>> Bully for Australia, when it
>> stands up for itself
>>
>> By Terry Lane
>> May 26 2002
>>
>> The first casualty of war is precision. I offer an example from
>> this newspaper last Sunday. This comes from the story about a
>> bunch of Australian soldiers who had to be rescued by the Poms