I know what you're thinking: well then, why didn't they send him to New Zealand? Alas, the ways of British justice are at times unfathomable.
Gah-wuff!
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin' command here.
Jayne ,'The Train Job'
All Ogle, No Cash -- It's Not Just Annoying, It's Un-American
Discussion of episodes currently airing in Un-American locations (anything that's aired in Australia is fair game), as well as anything else the Un-Americans feel like talking about or we feel like asking them. Please use the show discussion threads for any current-season discussion.
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Zoe Finch - Feb 04, 2003 8:26:47 am PST #1726 of 9843
Gradh tu fhein
Betsy HP - Feb 04, 2003 8:37:25 am PST #1727 of 9843
If I only had a brain...
picturing ships full of Diana Riggs and Alex Kingstons being sent off with David Attenborough narrating.
No wonder Australians are so astonishingly good-looking.
Nutty - Feb 04, 2003 8:39:17 am PST #1728 of 9843
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
Ancestors are an exciting bunch, even when you don't have self-aggrandizing elderly relatives. None of mine, alas, have gone antipodean, except the branch of the family that spent time in Brazil as "missionaries" (read: Maryland slaveowners who wrenched a few more years out of their status quo before Brazil outlawed slavery) in the 1870s. They came home, chagrined and, I presume, fluent in Portuguese, some time around 1890.
bloody Poms
Pomeranians? Pom-tiddly-poms? Do tell how this word is cheerily derogatory towards Britain. Or towards stupid people? Aspiring slangists want to know.
evil jimi - Feb 04, 2003 8:39:25 am PST #1729 of 9843
Lurching from one disaster to the next.
Also the Jacobites -fighters for Bonny Prince Charlie. The ones who weren't slaughtered were put on boats and shipped away.
I thought the Battle of Culloden predated the "discovery" of Australia by 40 years?
Wasn't Culloden fought in 1742?
Off by 4 years. 1746.
England didn't invade Australia until 1788, by which time most of the Jacobites and Wankie Ponce Chuckie, were totally dead.
Zoe Finch - Feb 04, 2003 8:47:04 am PST #1730 of 9843
Gradh tu fhein
Wasn't Culloden fought in 1742?
1746 {sniffle}. Most were slaughtered, the lucky ones were taken as prisoners and transported, perhaps it was west they were sent but I always thought it was to Australia. The folks who were forced from their lands (the few remainders of the pre-Culloden population) in the Clearances, later scattered throughout Canada, the US and Australia - those that survived the trip.
My family are part of what remains of the few that survived the famine in Ireland and the clearances here, survived the industrial revolution in Glasgow and somehow managed to keep going.
Zoe Finch - Feb 04, 2003 8:48:16 am PST #1731 of 9843
Gradh tu fhein
Wankie Ponce Chuckie
Please don't call our national hero -that stupid arrogant stuck up prig who's ignorance and cowardice got us all killed- names.
Edit: did I mention "French" in there at all? stupid arrogant, stuck up, French prig who's ignorance and cowardice got us all killed. Long live the King.
billytea - Feb 04, 2003 8:49:02 am PST #1732 of 9843
You were a wrong baby who grew up wrong. The wrong kind of wrong. It's better you hear it from a friend.
Pomeranians? Pom-tiddly-poms? Do tell how this word is cheerily derogatory towards Britain. Or towards stupid people? Aspiring slangists want to know.
Well, that's a tricky one. The origin's not terribly well documented; it probably arose through rhyming slang for 'immigrant'. Immigrants were referred to as 'Jimmy Grants', then 'Pomegranates' (hey, why not?) which got shortened to 'Pommies'. Incidentally, in the 19th century, it seems that 'pomegranate' was properly pronounced in England to rhyme not with 'commie-granate' but 'home-granate'. (But in Australia the second pronunciation was already common.)
As most immigrants at the time came from England, the term came to mean specifically English immigrants, and from there the English generally. There's really little that's derogatory in its origins, and it can be used without such connotations (much as we'd use the term 'Yank' for an American). But one of its more popular usages is in the phrase 'whingeing Pom', which is derogatory, and retains that immigrant link - it refers particularly to English who come out to Australia (henceforth to be referred to as God's own country) and then complain incessantly about things not being like they were at home.
evil jimi - Feb 04, 2003 8:50:55 am PST #1733 of 9843
Lurching from one disaster to the next.
Please don't call our national hero -that stupid arrogant stuck up prig who's ignorance and cowardice got us all killed- names.
AshleyActually, he's my stupid arrogant stuck up prig who's ignorance and cowardice got us all killed, as well. I'm an expat Dundonian, living in Australia since I was 3.
evil jimi - Feb 04, 2003 8:53:18 am PST #1734 of 9843
Lurching from one disaster to the next.
billytea ... there's also the theory that the term "Pom" sprang from the acronym, "PHOM" or "Prisoner of His Majesty". Not sure what the status is on that theory.
Nutty - Feb 04, 2003 9:06:03 am PST #1735 of 9843
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."
Thanks for the Pom answers. Heh.
Jimi, what's a Dundonian? Does that mean from Dundalk? (Which, okay, is a city in Maryland, but I'm sure also a city in Scotland, considering like 3/4 of city names in Maryland are also cities in Scotland?)
Yes! Hello, I'm the pig-ignorant, but endlessly curious merrykin today.