Australia

[David Fay]

why did the English inhabit Australia

[Quizmonster]

The aboriginal settlers probably arrived in Australia about 30,000 years ago. More recently, European navigators such as Hartog, Tasman and Dampier all set foot there before Captain James Cook annexed the eastern seaboard in 1770 under the name of New South Wales.

The subsequent British colonisation resulted largely because the transportation of convicts to the colonies in North America was stopped after the American Revolution. The plan to send our convicts to Botany Bay in New South Wales instead was initially put into practice in 1788. All future British - rather than just English - immigration to Australia stemmed from that.

[incitatus]

also having effectively discovered it the brits thought it best to put some people on it to stop the dutch getting their wicked claws into it.

[Quizmonster]

As I outlined briefly above, I, the Brits did not "effectively discover it". Hartog, a Dutch explorer, landed in Shark Bay in Western Australia in 1616. In 1642, Tasman, another Dutchman, discovered the island of Tasmania - now part of Australia. William Dampier, the first Englishman to set foot there, did not land on the west coast until 1689. Captain James Cook's expedition did not get there until 1770, a century and a half after the first Europeans landed. For some reason, most British people seem to think Cook discovered the place! He was only the first to land on the east coast, to make any serious claim to the territory and to instigate the beginning of British settlement.

Since they'd effectively ignored it for almost a couple of centuries, the Dutch didn't seem to be really interested in getting their "wicked claws into it" in any case!

[IndieSinger]

And it was Britain sending its convicts there that gave rise to the perjoritave phrase "Pome" ("Pommie bastards") - it's an acronym of Prisoner of Mother England.

[sddsddean]

If you want to read about it, find 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes. Its a long book, but tells you everything you wanted to know about the penal colonies of Australia, the history leading up to it and the hard lives that the convicts and soldiers had to endure.

[Quizmonster]

I'm afraid, Indie that your explanation of 'Pom/Pommie' is just an urban legend. There are several of these, many related to convicts, as to the origin of 'pom/pommy' for Englishman in colloquial Australian. (Yours is one and another is POHM = Prisoner of His Majesty and so on. None of them really hold water, I'm afraid.) The Oxford English Dictionary says the source is uncertain, but it tends to favour the idea that it is associated with 'pome(granate)'. This makes sense for two reasons...a. It very roughly rhymes with 'immigrant' which all post-convict-era British people were, of course, and b. the pomegranate is a very brightly red-coloured fruit. Obviously, the skin of newcomers to sunny Australia would look as red as that for some time after arrival. Apparently also, settlers' children already there used to shout "Pomegranate!" after such new arrivals in the street.

[IndieSinger]

It's odd that all the Australian sites say that POME stands for Prisoner Of Mother England. You need to spread your theory south of the equator, Quizmonster.

[Quizmonster]

Well, Indie, if you imagine some Australian website is on an authoritative par with The Oxford English Dictionary in the matter of the etymology of a word commonly used in English - Australian English just as much as British English usage, incidentally - then you are, of course, free to do so. Few would agree with you. (I'll just bet you could find stacks of web-pages that swear blind 'posh' was an acronym for 'port out, starboard home'. It wasn't.) The plain fact is that the earliest-recorded use of the word 'Pom' anywhere was in a book on Australian dialect published in 1919. There it meant an English soldier. 'Pom' was an abbreviation of 'Pommy' which first appeared in print just four years earlier and was a word Aussie soldiers applied to British ones during World War I.

If the words had anything whatever to do with prisoners or acronyms - for which there is not a shred of evidence - one has to ask why they did not appear until 130 years after Australia became a penal colony and 75 years after New South Wales ceased to be a dumping-ground for British convicts. The modern equivalent in America, for example, would be if people today suddenly started to use phrases common during the Civil War. How likely is that?

Unfortunately one cannot consult the OED online except at considerable cost, but here's a reliable site dealing with the matter that you can have a look at. Click http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pom1.htm

[IndieSinger]

Whilst not wishing to doubt the veracity of the OED, one is able to find a number of other sources suggesting that POME does stand for Prisoner Of Mother England. For example "A Natural History of Australia" (Tim Berra, 1999) and "Do's and Taboos of Using English Around the World (Roger E. Extell, 1995), "Australia: True Stories of Life Down Under (Larry Harbegger, 2000), "Speak Wright: The Literate Guide to the Game of Golf " (Ben Wright, 2000), "The Secret Lives of Words" (Paul West) as well as "The Oxford Companion to Australian History (Graeme Davison, 1999). They all seem to point to the conclusion that as soon as the convicts landed, their uniforms were stamped with P.O.M.E. or P.O.H.M. (Prisoner Of Mother England or Prisoner Of His Majesty).

[Quizmonster]

Again, Indie, I can but ask: "Is there a single one of your sources that is regarded as the authority on English etymology?" I don't really expect you to answer the question...I alreadyknow the answer!

I could find an equally long list of books, could I be bothered, to vouch for 'posh' as an acronym for 'port out, starboard home', as I said earlier. (There are even those misguided acronym-fanatics who believe the naughty short word that opens with the letter 'f' is one, too!)

Surely, if convicts' uniforms had to be stamped, there would have been a written regulation to that effect in 'Governors' Instructions'. British colonial administration was invariably meticulous in such matters, yet nobody ever wrote your claimed phrase down anywhere.

But I'll leave it at that...pomegranate/immigran(i)t remains by far the most likely source.

[IndieSinger]

Apparently "the" authority on English etymology is only "unsure" and only "tends to favour" one theory. It pays to keep and open mind.

[Quizmonster]

Here are a couple of ideas...An Irishman was often called 'Mick', not because that is an abbreviation of 'Michael', but because it stood for 'Made In County Kildare'. Similarly, 'Limey' had nothing to do with English sailors eating fruit but stood for 'Lives In Mother England'. I hope some AnswerBankers spread these ideas around and, in 100 years, questioners may well be advised to "keep an open mind" on the matter!

Incidentally, the OED does not fight shy of listing remotely-credible - but wrong - etymologies, which it then goes on to dismiss. Port of Melbourne, Prisoner of Mother England, Prisoner of His/Her Majesty and Permit of Migration have each been touted as the acronymic source of 'pom'. (What...all of 'em? Yep...all of 'em!) Yet, the OED does not even give any of them house-room. A perfect illustration, I'd say, of "a silence that speaks louder than words." What it does say is: "the most widely-held derivation is that which connects pom with pomegranate." Acronym-explanations are a nothing more than a minority view rather than the actual answer.

[secretsquiz]

Quizmonster, while you regularly provide very useful and informative answers on this site, i can't help but notice that you are never satisfied until everyone agrees with your answer!

above you mention keeping an open mind, but you rarely seem to do this yourself. fair enough your explanation may be the the most widely used, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is right.

for once it would be nice to see you let something lie and let other people have their opinions, rather than engaging in a slightly childish argument... even if you don't agree with it.

just a thought...

[Quizmonster]

Secrets, does this reply to you count against me as well? The attitude you comment on may come from the fact that I spent many years as a teacher/lecturer, during which people who by definition "didn't know" - namely pupils/students - would harp on about why their approach/interpretation was correct and mine wasn't. A classic was a girl who - when I commented that the work in her rough notebook was badly presented - said that all would be put right in the real thing. (In the event, of course, it wasn't!) Since I knew she played tennis competitively, I asked if that was her attitude on the practice-court. Namely, did she go out there and just hit the ball around willy-nilly or did she try to do things right even when just practising?

No doubt, as you have noticed, I have often carried this drive for "rightness" into my responses here, too. I do not apologise for that and, actually, I don't care whether people accept my views here on AnswerBank or not. The situation in this thread was that Indie made a claim for which there isn't a shred of real contemporaneous evidence and seemed reluctant to hear what recognised expert-sources - the OED and Michael Quinion, the personal face of the OED, if you like, at the Worldwidewords website for which I provided a link - had to say on the matter. I couldn't see that as being very different from the 'tennis'girl' illustration I offered above.

I can't see my approach changing any time soon, though of course I regret that it seems to offend you. By the way, I mentioned 'keeping an open mind' ironically, since Indie had used it first. A mind that is 'open' to just about anything is no great advantage!

[IndieSinger]

Quizmonster: I'd be interested to learn which version of OED (the authority on English etymology) you have.
In exact words, the 2003 version says:

ORIGIN C20: of unkown origin; said by some to be short for pomegranate, as a near rhyme to immigrant.

A meaning "said by some" is a far cry from a source "tending to favour" it.
As secretquiz says, we should be open to other suggestions and be prepared to accept the fact there are other opinions. I, for example, am now aware of a number of possibilities, all with a varying degrees of chances of being correct.

[Quizmonster]

As you've spotted, Indie, there are various 'varieties' of Oxford English Dictionary. However, there is but one of them actually called 'The Oxford English Dictionary'.

Clearly, I've no idea which variation you are quoting from...The Concise?...The Shorter?...The Whatever? The one I'm quoting from is the multi-volume one you can find in your local Reference Library - looking for all the world like a set of the 'Encyclop�dia Britannica' - and actually accorded the title 'The'. It alone is the master edition and from it have come the points I have made above. As it happens, I'm fortunate enough to have it on my bookshelves and - as it also happens - whenever someone on AnswerBank offers an etymology that disagrees with it, I try to correct them, since it is universally regarded as the 'bible' of English etymology. (Seems like I've wasted my time on this occasion, though!)

Michael Quinion is a leading etymologist/lexicographer and a major contributor to 'the' OED. He it is who runs the Worldwidewords website I tried to lead you to earlier. Did you read what he said about acronyms as explanations for 'pom'? One can quote book-titles that "say different" until one is blue in the face...it won't alter the fact that truly-expert opinion begs to differ. A major reason for that is probably the fact that the acronymaniacs never bother to explain why 'pom' should have come to mean 'Brit'. In convict days, everyone in Australia effectively was a Brit! What need, therefore, was there to differentiate. On the other hand, the rhyming 'pomegranate/immigran(i)t' explains perfectly...ie that 'pom' arose long after penal-colony days - your own dictionary says 20th Century - and referred to newcomers rather than native-born Aussies. In other words, 'pom' would seem to have had nothing to do with convicts at all! Evidence...let's have some evidence that it did. I've offered plenty that it didn't.

[del_1690]

Oh My GOD! Whether your OED is THE OED or A OED, it really doesnt matter. The fact is both of you think that you are more informed and obviously your opinion means more to yourself than others. But come on guys, arguing over this is neither productive or very mature. The fact of the matter is "We will never know", due to THE OED not being entirely sure. Cant we all just get along???

[Quizmonster]

Del, the solution, when you yourself have had enough of an AnswerBank thread, lies not in telling the continuing participants to desist but - quite literally - in your own hands. Don't click the mouse on the heading when you reach it!

It's good to hear, though, that you seem to recognise the absolute authority/value of the opinion of 'The Oxford English Dictionary'. It's rather a silly modern trend to believe that any opinion is as valid as any other. Personally, when I'm ill, I listen to my doctor's opinion in preference to some plasterer down the pub's opinion as to what is wrong with me. I'd still dearly love to hear why people believe 'pom' in any kind of prisoner sense came to mean 'Brit'.

Scene: Sydney Harbour. Morning, May 3rd 1899. A British immigrant - not convict - ship has recently docked and passengers are disembarking.

Brit: "Did you just call me a pom? Why?"

Aussie: "Because it stands for 'Prisoner of Mother England'."

Brit: "What's that got to do with me? I've never had anything to do with prisons or prisoners."

Aussie: "Oh yeah! That's me, isn't it? I'm the one descended from a convict! Sorry!"

In other words, if Brit immigrants had started calling native-born white Aussies 'poms', I'd have understood perfectly. So, why did the opposite happen? (I wonder if you can offer me a theory, Del, 'cos I don't think anyone else is going to. All I'm after here now is a reasonably rational explanation of why the acronym-etymology supporters give it (them, rather) any credence whatever.)

[IndieSinger]

Because that's what the convicts were. Prisoners of Mother England. They were prisoners and they came from England. There's not a lot to it.

I fully agree that arguing over this isn't productive, but I would like Quizmonster to accept that other theories exist, as I have. I personally have no idea which is the correct one, they all exist for a reason and each has a chance of being right.