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What is "swag"?


Caitilin
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What is "swag" ?  

166 members have voted

  1. 1. What is the first meaning of the word "swag" that comes into your head?

    • A type of curtain
      19
    • Loot or booty, such as a pirate collects
      42
    • Stuff We All Get
      35
    • Cool, awesome, etc.
      40
    • I have no idea, I just like polls
      4
    • Other
      26


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I think the modern meaning it comes from the goodie bags at the Oscars being called "swag bags."  So it usually means awesome goodie bag type stuff, but has sort of expanded its meaning to mean fancy and cool stuff.

 

 

That's it.

 

It is the bag of cool stuff one gets as a "freebie" when one attends the Academy Awards, and (more accurately) attends the on-site Governor's Ball immediately afterward (because that is where they are passed out, not at the show). I've been twice.

 

The word has percolated to include gift bags from other venues. 

 

Bill

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I'm with those who said it's your confidence, and the style/panache with which you dress and carry yourself.  But then, I'm the mama of two in the late teens and early twenties.  The eldest has zero swag, preferring to live either in his jeans and work polo, or his jammies.  LOL

 

I checked other.

 

In my world as a seamstress, a swag would have been a curtain or a seasonal decoration that hangs in an inverted arc.

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"Swag" means a curtain to me and "schwag" means branded merchandise or status symbols that nobody really needs. I'm in a rural town in Northern CA and my all teens morphed into twentysomethings too long ago for me to be cool any more.

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Well, I thought it had something to do with homosexuals or transvestites, but I wasn't sure.  So I googled it, and the Urban Dictionary sort of agrees with me....

 

From the context, that entry is using "gay" as an insult, the way that middle schoolers in Boston do, and not to mean people who are actually gay.

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Well, I thought it had something to do with homosexuals or transvestites, but I wasn't sure. So I googled it, and the Urban Dictionary sort of agrees with me....

Ah. I see you picked definition #1, there. Funny thing, really. Webster's says this:

 

Main Entry: 2 swag Function: noun Date: 1660 1 : SWAY 1 2 a : something (as a decoration) hanging in a curve between two points : FESTOON b : a suspended cluster (as of evergreen branches) 3 a : goods acquired by unlawful means : LOOT b : SPOILS, PROFITS 4 : a depression in the earth 5 chiefly Australian : a pack of personal belongings.

 

I can totally see the mixup, especially with acronyms, and all. It's like Peoples United Hands Let Every Assembly Spokesperson Express! They always had a hard time at the rallies.

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