picturing ships full of Diana Riggs and Alex Kingstons being sent off with David Attenborough narrating.

No wonder Australians are so astonishingly good-looking.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jimi, what's a Dundonian?

A resident -- or former -- of Dundee, Scotland. :)