With the fruit thus easily grown in Australia – and the whole thing seen as coming about long after convict times – “I get you”. I’ve perhaps been fixating on the accounts often heard, of the first convict settlements: their being pathetically ill-conceived, and poorly equipped to support themselves in any way or grow anything, let alone exotic luxury fruits.
If only the poor old Tazzy Tiger might be – against most hope and probability – discovered still alive and well in the wild: I’d value that far above learning the true-and-for-certain derivation of “Pom” !
The general picture I get, is that acronym-based folk etymology from any time predating World War II, is almost certain to be fallacious.
It would seem indeed that probably we’ll never know for sure, about this one !
Plaster of Paris / Arras – with a “French connection” to boot – one to like ! It’s generally felt that the simpler explanation for something, is likelier to be right, than the more abstruse and complicated one.
My sentiments about Bryson are of the “little girl with the little curl” kind.
I’d like to feel that I was wrong in my cultural snobbery. I do wonder, though – Brahms and Liszt – maybe invented in recent decades by switched-on educated types; becoming popular subsequently, among less cultivated folk who had never before heard of the musical gents concerned? (As ever, I’d be glad to be found wrong.)