Pom derives from Prisoner of Mother England - Americans are known as sepos (sceptic Īny ideas what is slang for Aussie, tried tosser, inbred, convict, even skippy still trying to find apt name please help I like to be friendly just as much as your avarage Aussie.
Maybe you help the locals seem keen on it, some even call me by full name.
Thats very imformative, trying to work out what my last name means now. But don t get too riled up - it s all just slightly tasteless rhyming slang for Yank. My friend Terry tells me that Americans are known in Australia as septics, short for septic tanks. If this seems a lot of trouble to take to come up with a slang term for immigrant, hold onto your hat. "Jimmygrant," it seems, was at one time Australian rhyming slang for immigrant, so "pom" involves a double rhyme. Pom, it seems, is almost certainly a second-generation slang word derived from pomegranate, a rhyme with the Australian slang term jimmygrant. The principle of rhyming slang is very simple: pick a word or phrase that rhymes with the word you wish to hide - thus, apples and pears means stairs, and trouble and strife translates as wife. Rhyming slang evolved in the 18th century as a private language among thieves and con men to conceal their dealings from the prying ears of the police, and gradually spread throughout the working classes of the entire British Commonwealth, including Australia. The most logical theory, however, explains the term as an example of rhyming slang, the argot of London s Cockney underworld. Various theories about pom have been proposed, including the acronym POHM, standing for Prisoner of His Majesty, supposedly applied to the English prisoners exiled to Australia early in its colonial history.