The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at...
Marian in Norfolk, Virginia, says a character in the new Downton Abbey movie uses the term swag meaning either “bunting” or “stuff,” and wonders if its use in the film is a linguistic anachronism. In fact, swag was used with...
Swag is not an acronym for Stuff We All Get. In fact, most acronymic “etymologies” are complete hogwash. Swag, commonly used to mean “free stuff,” goes back to the 1700’s and refers to the ill-gotten swag, or booty, of...
freeball v.— «This same friend freeballed one day…and was forced to wear his denim jeans while running the 440 meter in his gym class.» —“Re: Cats Bloody Cats” by Swag (dl22@cornell.edu) Usenet: alt...