Quote By Emerson

[Shyheels]

Read a thoughtful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson in an article in The New Yorker yesterday: Congratulate yourselves if you have done something strange or extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.

[Dr. Shoe]

The good old Sage Of Concord eh?

 

Why does a Limey know that then?

[meganiwish]

Not everyone in England is a limey.

[ilikekicks]

Not everyone in England is a limey.

 

As a ' native ', could you explain what a ' Limey ' is from an inside perspective? The word probably has a different meaning to you then us ' yanks '.

[Shyheels]

Limey was a derogatory term originally applied to 19th century Royal Navy seamen. The Royal Navy used to add lime juice to the daily ration of rum to help ward off scurvy at sea. The ships were known as lime-juicers and the men aboard them as limeys. Eventually it lost its naval connotations and was used in North America and Australia to refer to English people in general.

I am not a limey, but originally hail from New England and so have a good working knowledge of Emerson and Thoreau

[ilikekicks]

Thanks Shyheels for the explanation. Its most appreciated.

 

-ILK

[Dr. Shoe]

That is more or less true except that Australians tend to call us poms or pommies for the same reason in that it was apple juice added to the ration.

[Shyheels]

I have a complicated pedigree being Australian as well and my understanding of the derogatory term pom or pommie is that it is a reference to the acronym POHM that was on the shirts of prisoners sent Down Under in the bad old days of transportation.

As far as I know apple juice was never a part of daily rations on Royal Navy ships, or if it was it was nothing they were famous for. It was always lemon or lime, and more generally lime

Sorry, I forgot to say that POHM stood for Prisoner of His Majesty (or Her Majesty, as the case may be)

[nyenor]

Another trem for the meaning of Pommie I have heard is 'Prisoner of Mother England.

[meganiwish]

Right, here goes.  Actually, the chap who discovered that scurvy was caused by vitamin C deficiency experimented with a lot of things, including cider, so there's you apples.  It was just that lime juice gave the best results.  The thing is, there was no native white population to give the nickname.  The transportees were the first.  It wasn't a land of opportunity like America, that's why they were transported there.  Anyway, I have my doubts about how many people in Australia spoke French.  No, I think we can discount that one.

 

Printing on clothes is such a 20th century thing to do.  In the 1800s clothing was expensive.  They didn't give uniforms to the transportees, they just shipped them in the rags they wore.  So I suspect the POHM thing is probably wrong.

 

Mother Russia, (I believe the word is 'rodina' [sorry, I don't know how to do Cyrilic]) is quite a rare example of a motherland.  I've never heard Mother England.  One does hear it described as the mother country, but that is always in terms of the relationship of Commonwealth countries to Britain.  So I think we can dismiss Nyenor's too.   Anyway, the timing's wrong too.

 

I heard an idea for an etymology that it came from immigrant/pomegranite. Very unlikely.  Most slang can't be rationalised, it just is.  All you need to know is that the adjective that goes with 'pom' is 'whingeing'.  It's like tonic with gin

[Shyheels]

James Lind in 1753 was the first to prove citrus fruits could be used to treat scurvy, although the idea had been around anecdotally for some centuries before that. He offered some formal experimental proof, although of course, he did not know of vitamin C - that was not discovered until 1932. James Cook in the 1770s had wonderful success at sea in warding off scurvy. He attributed his success to adding sauerkraut to his men's diet. Sauerkraut has some vitamin C but not much. It was largely destroyed by the cooking process.

It was his insistence on shipboard cleanliness and regular restocking with fresh food at every opportunity that played the larger role, as well as his refusal to allow his men to eat the fat scrubbed off the bottom of the copper pans. Although Cook couldn't have known it, that fact reacted with the copper to form compounds that inhibited the body's ability to absorb vitamin C. It helped too that he was going places where there was lots of citrus around.

Although the curative effects of citrus were proved by Lind in 1753 it was many decades, well into the 19th century, before lime juice became a regular feature of life aboard a Royal Navy warship.

Pommie has many origins. As you say the origin of slang is extremely difficult to trace. But that's part of the fun!

[nyenor]

Megan. The term I referred to maily orginated in the 1950/60's era, that of the so-called £10 tourist (of which I am one. Still here after almost 50 years). The Australian Government subsidised migrants from many European countries at this time and you had to stay for a minimum of three years. As many returned home after this period of time, those subsidised became known as 'tourists'. At the same time derogatory names began to flouish, one being 'Prisoner of Mother England' for anyone from the UK, and boy didn't the Scots and Irish get upset. I have no idea why this name was 'chosen'. WOG was another of these names and, unlike in Britain where I believe it refers to persons of Asian ancestry, here it refers to those of mainly Greek origin, although also covers those from Italy and Spain. I am after all these years still called a 'Pommie Bastard' by many, and not always in jest.

[Dr. Shoe]

It's certainly an odd term to describe a Brit as a Prisoner of Mother England and sounds to me to be a reverse acronym in that they've sought words to justify a much older term. As others have said no one has ever thought of England as being the Mother Land except in a political context and I think it is unlikely that the kind of person who would dream up a derogatory nickname would think in those terms, let alone come up with a name that intrinsically venerates the UK as a superior place.

 

Wog is a classic case: People claim that it stands for Western Oriental Gentleman so why aren't black ladies referred to as WOLs or WOWs even? And why not WOM or WOP? OK, I concede that Wop is used but in a rather different context. The reason why I find WOG to be bizarre is because it's self contradictory, it effectively means Western Eastern Gentleman!

 

It doesn't really work as everyone knows that Wog is actually short for Gollywog which is a corruption of the word Pollywog which is an old fashioned name for tadpole.

[Shyheels]

I love language and etymology.

I had never before heard of Wog being an acronym for Western Oriental Gentleman. As you say, it is utterly illogical.

I also never heard of Prisoner of Mother England. That too seems wildly unlikely, and for exactly the reasons you list. Prisoner of His (or Her) Majesty has some logic as this was apparently used, in abbreviation, beside the names if prisoners on ship manifests. I can't vouch for its authenticity as I never took the trouble to investigate it, but I could at least imagine such a thing.

[nyenor]

In my youth in Britain I was always led to understand that the term WOG stood for WILEY Oriental Gentleman.

[meganiwish]

I'd heard WESTERNISED. Probably both untrue. Just a word. Your average racist isn't smart enough to come up with an acronym.

[Shyheels]

They came up with KKK...:-)

(OK, maybe strictly speaking an initialism rather than an acronym, but I can never resist a glib response where there is even a ghost of one in the offing! :-))

[meganiwish]

Are we going to call that an acronym?  Sounds like a hairball in the throat.

[Shyheels]

Oh I don't know. Maybe some redneck good ole boy with a chaw of tobacco in his gob... :-)

[ilikekicks]

Oh I don't know. Maybe some redneck good ole boy with a chaw of tobacco in his gob... :-)

 

If your going to take a swipe at the ' Rednecks ' at least get it right. Its Tabackie, damn limey!

[dww]

How did I know that was coming.

[meganiwish]

If your going to take a swipe at the ' Rednecks ' at least get it right. Its Tabackie, damn limey!

Damn honorary limey   And we're most pleased to have him.

[ilikekicks]

How did I know that was coming.

 

Because you have been anointed with the great gift of insight! You know things before they happen

[meganiwish]

I think I've got that too.  I went a few years back to see the film (US movie) Deja Vu, but I had the feeling I'd seen it before.

[dww]

Not really it's just that after a few years you sort of get to know people and hope you know their thoughts. Bit like being an older driver you can tell what people are going to do before they do it, takes a time to learn and 90% of the time you are right, well not quite 90% but nearly. I'am sure you and lots of others know what I mean.

[Shyheels]

If your going to take a swipe at the ' Rednecks ' at least get it right. Its Tabackie, damn limey!

If your going to take a swipe at the ' Rednecks ' at least get it right. Its Tabackie, damn limey!

There are many different accents throughout the south and Appalachia

I think I've got that too.  I went a few years back to see the film (US movie) Deja Vu, but I had the feeling I'd seen it before.

Perhaps you were seeing the sequel - or prequel...

Damn honorary limey   And we're most pleased to have him.

Thank you! And I am most pleased to be here!

[Dr. Shoe]

I knew you were going to say that!

 

I think I've got that too.  I went a few years back to see the film (US movie) Deja Vu, but I had the feeling I'd seen it before.

 

I knew you were going to say that!

[meganiwish]

Touchee