Don't call us Poms, say PomsBy Heath AstonNovember 30, 2006 01:00am
IT is the Don Bradman of whinges.
A group of thin-skinned English expats wants the word Pom banned, claiming it is a racial slur on a par with the most appalling insults.
British People Against Racial Discrimination has gone to the Advertising Standards Board in an attempt to derail the latest Tooheys campaign which mocks the warm-beer-drinking Brits.
The ads claim Tooheys' supercold brand is "cold enough to scare a Pom".
The Aussie brewer will fight the complaint, saying BPARDs gripe is as wide of the mark as Steve Harmison's first ball in the Ashes series.
"The Oxford Dictionary classes Pom as being derogatory just like wog, wop, dink, dago, coon and abo, it's every bit as bad as the term nigger," BPARD spokesman David Thomason said yesterday.
BPARD, which has a committee of 14 and branches in Perth and Melbourne, does not want Pom banned from general usage but Mr Thomason believes there is an agenda in the media to take the insult to new heights.
BPARD has some well-heeled backing from the mother country in the form of the notoriously stuffy English and Wales Cricket Board.
ECB chief executive David Collier said in a letter dated October 10: "The ECB continues with our position that we would prefer the terminology not be used".
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission disagrees however, saying it is only the descriptive language used in tandem with Pom that carries offence.
"The prospect of the use of the word 'Pom' itself inciting hatred against a group appears more remote than the use of words used to describe other racial groups," commission spokesman Paul Oliver said.
The stink is unlikely to deter Australian cricket fans from roasting their English rivals when the second Test begins in Adelaide tomorrow.
But even that battle is skewed against the Poms, according to Mr Thomason.
"These songs that the Aussie supporters sing talk about we can't get near you because of your smell, your body odour, your bad breath, your buck teeth, your whingeing, have you got some soap," he said.
"The worst you hear from the Barmy Army is that Aussies are sheep shaggers and you all live in a penal colony."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20843196-2,00.html