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| misuse of the word "schwag" Webster's Online says "swag" is "loot; spoils, profits." For obvious reasons, I prefer the synonym "booty." Everyone knows that "schwag" is slang for shitty marijuana (dry, full of seeds/sticks, or just low in THC), but more and more often (and especially on the West Coast) I've heard "schwag" used to mean "free crap from industry conventions" or "the stuff in gift bags from Hollywood award dinners." Drives me nuts. Google the word "schwag" and, as of April 2006, all but the first hit are pages about swag, including a typically long-ass story from Wired.com about the history of corporate-logo-stamped tchotchkes. That first hit is the page for a Grateful Dead tribute band called The Schwag, who may be a bunch of asshole hippies but who obviously take their name from the real, drug-related definition.* I'd like to be a more descriptive logophile, but my nature is prescriptive. Yeah, I know that usage changes the language, and that many things are acceptable now that were anathema to our ancestors. But some things in popular usage are just wrong wrong wrong, and I won't shut up while there's still a chance to stem the flow of wrongness. For only one example, "alumni" is still plural: say "an alumni" and I slap you with a knife. In fact, while we're on the topic, many words ending with an "i" are plural, especially if they arrived in English unchanged from Italian or Latin: Cacti, ravioli, gemini, etceteri. But hell! Back to the point of this review, which is that "schwag" refers to bad weed, so stop using it for "swag." I understand the desire to Yiddishize words when possible, because it just sounds funny. Cut it out. *(BTW, you should totally look at the pictures on The Schwag's site. It's a very upsetting collection of snapshots from gigs, featuring the universally hippie-hideous members of the band posing with an endless stream of relatively cute girls with big smiles and bad taste in music. I find it helpful to look at the photos when I forget why I hate hippies. Gets me back on track.) | |
| using "schwag" when you mean "swag": | : .2.6. . : . . . . : |
4/11/2006 • link •
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4 comments:
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that schwag really only refers to pot that was bought in the mid to late 80's in the Bronx while driving at approximately four miles an hour in a large car with seven kids from the suburbs inappropriately stuffed inside. I would argue that anything besides the dry, nearly useless grass found inside a VHS box, which is held by a Rastafarian who is standing motionless in a doorway, is a mistaken use of the word.
Okay, Kenten, if you want to further restrict the use of "schwag," I'm all for it, because then maybe I'll never hear it again, and that'd be soon enough. You could say schwag only refers to "dry, suspiciously oregano-smelling weed twisted up in a cigarette pack wrapper and stored in a sawed-in-half Tab can under a stack of laserdiscs" too, and I wouldn't protest.
However, maybe you're just trying to be funny while painting a nostalgic picture for us. That's okay too.
I beg to differ. Maybe in New York schwag has lost prominence with the advent of the whatever, but in Texas we've got it in spades. The streets are paved with it and it gushes from the fire hydrants. Probably because of our proximity to Mexico.
My exboyfriend used to party with The Schwagg. I haaaaaaated it.
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