On  Sunday, February 16, 2003 9:06 PM, Lee Bell wrote:

(snip)
> At any rate, back to pom briefly.  The multiple responses to this leave me
> with a question or two.  Does the term also imply the individual has left
> Great Britain ...

G'Day, Lee!  The answer to your questions is ...Absolutely!  It's something
to do with a need to categorise everyone acording to their country of
origin.  Despite having lived in Oz for donkey's years - far longer than I
ever spent in the UK -  I'm still regarded as a Pom.  (So is Tricky, Julian
and Helen, Janet, Sylvia, Dave, etc.)  Even Ralf - refers to us as Poms -
especially when Germany's giving England a dicking at soccer! :-)

The same applies to people from all of the major immigrant groups, Italians,
Greeks, Chinese, Irish, Americans, Indonesians, French, Germans, Indians,
Africans and Eskimos.  Sometimes it even extends through to the second and
third generation in the case of Australians of Italian or Greek descent. :-)

>and, if so, does it have to be for Australia?

Mate!  I suspect that it can be used by anyone anywhere! <BWG> But to do so
would be to deny other countries the opportunity to use their own
expressions!  I remember once being on a relatively small frigate moored
alongside the dockyard wall in Bangkok right in front of a US Navy Submarine
Supply vessel whose stern loomed above us.  We could hear all of the tannoy
signals made aboard the US Ship, including the one, "Liberty men are warned:
The Limeys have just been paid!"  We wore that one as a badge of pride!
:-)))

But at the end of the day, I suppose it depends on the country's culture and
whether or not the terms are used in a pejorative sense.  Here in Oz,
they're usually just labels that have little if any derogatory connotations.
:-)

Strike
(Still a Pommie Bastard!)  :-)))