What's with whingeing poms?

Discussion Open Forum
1

In Taiwan I had a great pool of predominantly English mates, which ultimately lowered my guard to poms. That was quite some feat, as my pom prevention barriers were fixed at an early age by the incredible number of whiny whingeing poms I encountered growing up in Australia. It sounds unfair, but believe me there is such a phenomenon, and most Australians can spot it a mile away, thus the term whingeing pom. Even more recent immigrants like the Vietnamese who have no great historical exposure to the English, but can obviously spot a whiner in their midst, have adopted this term.

Jeremy Clarkson recently moaned that “Australia is where you go when you’ve made a mess of everything. That’s why the 1.3m Brits who live there are known as whingeing Poms. Because they’re all failures.” That seems a little harsh to me, but there maybe something in it, obviously.

In my experience, your typical whingeing pom is prone to an overwhelming state of negativity. They sigh often, have pouty faces and tend to come out with crap like: “But the butter (invariably pronounced boottah) doesn’t taste the same as it did in England.” It’s the grass, it’s just not as green." “All this blinking sunshine it can’t be good for the eyes you know.” or, It’s al very well having nice beaches but it’s too hot to swim and the sand burns your feet, and then there’s the skin cancer." These are genuine quotes, by the way, mostly muttered with a north English accent, has to be said.

Then in Taiwan I became naturally inclined to think the English were probably alright, or at least worthy of a look in. At the same time, I became wary of North Americans, as their greater numbers tended to mean more clowns, particularly after 911. But here in HK where the English dominate, I’m finding myself increasingly raising the bar on the poms. In fact mostly I cringe when I hear them talking with what I now consider to mostly be horrid accents. On the flipside, I cringe less these days when I hear Australians and I’m actually starting to appreciate the Americans (that’s cannucks and AmeriKKKans cos I really, despite a little bit of effort, can’t tell them apart).

I’m not pointing any fingers here, it is just an observation, but at the same time, what’s with whingeing poms?

HG

2

First time I worked abroad I got some good advice from one of the other English guys out there which was to avoid English expat contractors like the plague. A tiny minority are ok, and the rest are very far from ok.

Mind you it applies to most nation’s expats I think - expats are people who chose to roam the earth rather than stay home. It’s not surprising that a lot of them have a few issues. That said, the Aussies, Americans and South Africans I’ve met seem to have a much lower whinger ratio than say the Brits.

So there’s probably some truth to the stereotype. I don’t really know why this would be, maybe it’s xenophobia or something. Certainly most of the whiners seem to have a strange belief that everything back home was good, even though I bet they whined about shit before they left too. I also think it might be that English culture places a high value on people appearing to know what they are doing and being the smartest guy in the room. Other cultures where knowing you don’t know is valid perhaps produce people who are more able to cope with being in a place where you don’t know what the hell is going on.

But that doesn’t really apply to Aussies, who I’m sure would be gratingly cheerful even if the commies decided to ship them off to an internment camp and slowly starve them to death.

I dunno really, once you know the ‘whingeing pom’ phenomenon it’s quite easy to spot these people and thus avoid them, who really cares why they’re such arseholes?

3

Are they all that short?

4

When given whingeing poms, make Pomade.

5

Well, I don’t WANT no Goddamn Fop, I’m a Dapper Dan man!

6

I find the younger crowd from many countries to be whinging poms. Especially young Americans, too spoiled?

7

Well I for one fucking hate this rain. It’s so humid. And the milk tastes funny, too. Can’t these people even make goddamn fish and chips?

8

I like Pommie Bastards (well, apart from being cheapo bastards).

They are a bit negative which can translate into whining, but it is also part of the source of their humour.

Anyway, I have to get back to my fauna-cation, I mean work.

9

Now Sandman’s raised a point. Why don’t we say whingeing Scots? My own theory holds that the further north in England (which is my own slack usage for the whole clump of shitty little islands I never plan on visiting), the higher the propensity to whine. Now Scotland is at the top of the ladndmass, so that should mark the pinnacle, but no one ever notices. I suspect if more of what they say was understood, we just might call them whiney Scots.

And as for you, almas, I seem to recall, that while you claim to be pure sheep shagger, you are in fact full blood whinger.

HG

10

Because while whingeing poms moan about "why can’t it be like… " we Scots simply state “This is a loaday fuckin’ shite.” And then look for somebody to chib.

11

Because we have so many alliterative alternatives:

sheep-shagging, sodden, sluttish, slobbish, slow and smelly, for instance.

Oh, and SEXY, of course. :stuck_out_tongue:

12

WTH is a ‘whingeing pom’?

Speak some recognizable form of eng-lish !

13

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Now Sandman’s raised a point. Why don’t we say whingeing Scots? My own theory holds that the further north in England (which is my own slack usage for the whole clump of shitty little islands I never plan on visiting), the higher the propensity to whine. Now Scotland is at the top of the ladndmass, so that should mark the pinnacle, but no one ever notices. I suspect if more of what they say was understood, we just might call them whiney Scots.

And as for you, almas, I seem to recall, that while you claim to be pure sheep shagger, you are in fact full blood whinger.

HG[/quote]The further north in Britain you go, the more stoic people tend to be. The Scots are particularly known for it.

For northerners and Scots, the general British negativity tends to manifest itself in other ways, such as chronic grumpiness.

14

It must be terrible in the North though. Those poor people living on diet of deep fried Mars bars and heroin and sitting an post industrial wasteland with no chance to get a job ‘down t’pit’ like the previous 50 generations of their family.

15

Thanks for that clarification, joesax. I’ve just consulted a map, and to my embarrasment I now see that Birmingham is in fact in the middle of it all. You know, if I was from Birmingham, I’d do everything within my power to lose my accent immediately. Failing that, I’d cut my throat.

Oops, I feel mean now.

Sorry, TC, that should be whingeing bloody pom. You should read more, there’s loads of it about. Anyway, in this instance I think you might just appreciate the fact that someone is having ago at someone else for a change.

[quote]From a whingeing Pom to a proud citizen
As a Brit with memories of £10 boat fares to Australia, I was astonished to find that when I decided I wanted to become a resident of the country (Australia), I had to go through the same procedures as other nationalities.[/quote]

[quote]I’m no whingeing Pom
David Kew finds a lot to like about Australia although the pubs are horrible and the beer is worse.[/quote]

WTF? That last one kind of stumbled and blundered straight through the first hurdle.

HG

16

I’ll admit that we are whingers, but bloody damn good ones! It should be an Olympic sport and then the Chinese wouldn’t be at the top of that medal table. Damn the Chinese and their wonderful opening ceremony. Trust us to be next as we’ll be shite! Damn, I’ve whinged :wink: As for you and your fellow Aussies HG, I’m sure us Brits would like you more if you weren’t all so shy and modest.

17

:laughing:

I’ll try to be a little more forthcoming but I’m afraid it’s not really in my make up for some reason.

I feel awful about this. Please, if you are a Brummy with one of those really stupid accents, please, please don’t cut your throat!

[quote][quote]Birmingham wishes it could ditch Brummie accent
It has long been the butt of jokes from people in some parts of the country - but now even the people of Birmingham say that they want to disown the Brummie accent.

By John Bingham
Last Updated: 1:46PM BST 29 Jul 2008
Almost eight out of 10 people in the second city told pollsters that they wish they had a different accent - higher than anywhere else in country.

And only one per cent of people from other parts of the UK said they would chose to speak with the distinctive nasal tones associated with the comedian Jasper Carrot or rocker Ozzy Osbourne. [/quote][/quote]

HG

18

To be fair, many of us whinge about Pomland even more than we whinge about other places.

My brother spent a great working holiday year down under. His only gripe was that quite a few people there took it upon themselves to explain to him how much better Australia was than any other country, especially England. Even if they’d never actually been abroad.

19

geez, why do you need to go abroad when you live in Australia? the rest of the world’s just crap. and you can’t get a decent beer or go to a decent beach or whatever. AND the weather sucks.

anyway, Poms just need to be told. firmly. all the time. whether they like it or not.

never stops their whinging, though.

:smiley:

20

:laughing: