Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site asgb.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!sdcsvax!bmcg!asgb!hal
From: hal@asgb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: british
Message-ID: <482@asgb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-May-84 16:01:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: asgb.482
Posted: Tue May 29 16:01:03 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jun-84 06:54:14 EDT
References: <134@mhuxj.UUCP>
Organization: Burroughs Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 22

An earlier article in the discussion about what to call
persons of the british persuasion referred to the word
"pome".  When I was in Australia, I heard this word used
to describe <brits, etc.>

However, the other evening, I was watching some show on
the tube and one of the characters mentioned that his
grandfather was buried with  P.O.M.E. on his gravestone
as an abbreviation for Prisoner of Mother England.

My question is, did pome derive somehow from P.O.M.E., or what?
If it did, its use as a name for <brits,etc.>
seems backwards (unless the use of the term was 
meant to say that those who stayed behind were the real prisoners).

Webster's Collegiate says that "pommy" or "pommie" [origin unknown]
(Austral.)  is a term for an English immigrant (usually disparaging)
which would fit with a derivation from P.O.M.E.

Does anybody really know where this term came from?

haleden