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Hi, NE - please treat my little joke in the spirit intended, as welcoming you to the nuthouse like one of the family!
I am not so sure this is uniquely USnism. In contrast to Rhuby, as a Brit I am very comfortable with this as a distinctive way of saying "expectations disappointed" or something similar. When you look at the etymolgy of whelm it seems a reasonable new backformation of a word with fine (Old) English pedigree:
whelm (hwĕlm, wĕlm)
tr.v., whelmed, whelm·ing, whelms.
To cover with water; submerge.
To overwhelm.
[Middle English whelmen, to overturn, probably alteration (influenced by helmen, to cover) of whelven, from Old English -hwelfan (as in âhwelfan, to cover over).]
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Dear NoEffects ... Could it be we are both correct?
A word with several meanings .... who'd a thunk it!
Mercy!
Not to worry ...it's a fad word ... or is it?
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Long as mav is going to bring reason (i.e., the etymology of whelm) into the fray let me suggest that underwhelm *should mean to undercut, to wash away the foundation of as in "Mary's patent application was underwhelmed by her colleague's false claims of prior discovery of the phenomenon".
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well, as is our wont, we seem to be late to the party:
[f. under-1 10a, after overwhelm v.]
trans. To leave unimpressed, to arouse little or no interest in. Chiefly as under"whelmed pa. pple. and ppl. a., and under"whelming ppl. a.
1956 T. K. Quinn Giant Corporations viii. 61 He wrote+commending the action of one of the giant corporations for a+price reduction at a time when prices were rising. I was underwhelmed, and investigated. 1968 Punch 17 July 81/2, I agree that the wretched parents are not to be penalised till 1969 and I'm sure they are under-whelmed with gratitude. 1970 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 3 July 47/1 Victoria Fair got off to a quite underwhelming start+with a concert in the University of Victoria gym. 1972 Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Dec. 1569/4 Both the prose and the play are underwhelming. 1978 Ottawa Citizen 2 Mar. 3/3 The Sparks Street post office ran out of applications+but a survey of other post offices+showed the public was generally underwhelmed. 1984 Observer 15 Jan. 9/3 He was+fluent in speech and crashingly dull. If there was an opportunity to be underwhelming, he unfailingly seized it.
[from the Usual Gang of Madmen at the OED]
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Long as mav is going to bring reason sorry - must have stepped in something 
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sorry - must have stepped in something Did it sound like a bell?  Or did you just chime in with your reason?
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addict
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Andrew Ford, an Australian writer of music and about music, was asked this question in a radio interview last week. He prefers to use the term "art music" rather than classical or serious music.
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My sweet paulb (I am always SO pleased to see a post of yours, Dear Heart), I greatly fear that you may have unleashed a spate of further outraged discussion--we shall see. Did he explain why, that you recall?
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How about unpopular music?
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That's what we call 'Jazz' (scampering away in-the-now-e)
I couldn't resist.
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