Octane Swag

January 27, 2005

While listening to Sirius Radio's Octane channel this morning, the DJ referred to going online to purchase "Octane Swag."

Before geocaching, I had never heard of goodies being referred to as "swag." I couldn't help but muse whether or not this geocaching term is beginning to bleed over into mainstream culture.

Has anyone else noticed evidence our geocaching subculture bleeding over into a mainstream culture? I find this very fascinating!

January 27, 2005

Octane swag: That's the money that people will need to start leaving in caches to help pay for gas now that the price per gallon is back over $2.00 in my area! :unsure:

24.7k · January 27, 2005

In some other threads on swag people mentioned that they had heard swag used on radio shows to refer to price in the days before caching. We problably stole the term from them.

20.7k · January 27, 2005

I think that the term 'swag' has been in use for a long time.

January 27, 2005

Swagged price, yes, I'm familar with. In this case, the "swag" referred to the actual items. I don't doubt the term came from somewhere else, since geocaching is only 5 years old. It is just, well, I haven't heard it used as such before, and I'm fairly well traveled...

20.7k · January 27, 2005

A quick search at dictionary.com found that it was included in the 2000 version of the American Heritage Dictionary as slang for stolen property or loot. One would infer from this that its actual usage predates this hobby.

24.7k · January 27, 2005

Swagged price, yes, I'm familar with. In this case, the "swag" referred to the actual items. I don't doubt the term came from somewhere else, since geocaching is only 5 years old. It is just, well, I haven't heard it used as such before, and I'm fairly well traveled...

For what it's worth, Neither have I.

January 27, 2005

I've heard the word swag for years. I remember hearing somewhere it stands for "Sweet a** Gear".

20.7k · January 27, 2005

Maybe its a regional thing. :unsure:

2k · January 27, 2005

I've heard the term for years in various forms.

In Engineering:

Anybody care to make a SWAG on how long this will work? (Sweet Wild A** Guess)

Marketing:

Anybody got a swag on what this will sell for? (Same as Engineering)

In lit:

Pirates swag.

Radio:

"Common on down to our live broadcast at Fatty Burger and score some swell swag!!!!!"

(Ever notice how radio anouncers always sound like there are four of five exclamation points after every phrase?)

January 27, 2005

I recall that the bag burglars put their loot in was called a "swag bag" where I grew up on Long Island about 40 years ago....and the loot, even in the newspapers, was referred to as "swag"......so the term has been around at least that long. I always took it, even in geocaching, as meaning the same thing as "loot" ( as a noun, not a verb.)

January 27, 2005

There is a radiostation here that refers to their 'stuff' as swag you can buy on their website. They've been using it for at least 5 years (as long as I've been living here).

January 27, 2005

"Swag" has been around for years. Most notably in the radio industry, used to refer to the cheaply (ironic?) made t-shirts and other prizes that they use as give aways for the little wacky contests they have. :unsure:

6.5k · January 27, 2005

I have referred to the stuff you always bring home from trade shows as swag, long before I started caching, and even before that great date of 5/3/00.

January 27, 2005

$.02

Swag (or Schwag) has been used to refer to "stuff" (or schtuff). Generally "free stuff" that you collect at races, shows, exhibits, etc, such as items with logos and other promotional things.

Have heard this term used at bike races for years.

January 27, 2005

Swag is also a convention term. Anything (eg. pens, wallets, magnets, stress balls, mouse pads) that can have your company logo on to be given away as a promotional item is swag or shwag as it is sometimes known. So swag would mean something inexpensive that you give away for free in this context. There are even people who collect swag. When my parents used to drag me along to trade shows (before swag was creative) i used to collect business cards. My favorites were two Rip Van Winkle Mattresses cards that were blue and you could scritch them like a record. Zipty, zipty zipty zip zip zip. There are companies all over the place where you can order swag and get your company name and information put on 'em. And that was the best Spring Break ever.

January 27, 2005

swag (v.)

"to move heavily or unsteadily," 1530, probably from O.N. sveggja "to swing, sway," cognate with O.E. swingan "to swing" (see swing). The noun sense of "ornamental festoon" is first found 1794. Earlier senses of "bulky bag" (1303) and "big, blustering fellow" (1588) may represent separate borrowings from the Scand. source.

(Copied and pasted from the Online Etymology Dictionary)

The reference to a bulky bag suggests a likely origin of the term "swag bag", which has been used for centuries by London's petty criminals to mean the bag you use to carry stuff you've nicked, or "found" if the local constabulary should care to ask. It seems a small step to our current use of the term to describe items we find in our caches.

Given the term's usage by London's criminal fraternity, I initially suspected a rhyming slang-related etymology. However I haven't been able to find any evidence of this. If I have time tomorrow I'll raid our linguistics faculty and find out more.

Isn't language wonderful?

(or maybe I'm just letting Speech Language Pathology rule my life... oh dear...)

24.7k · January 27, 2005

I've heard the term for years in various forms.

In Engineering:

Anybody care to make a SWAG on how long this will work? (Sweet Wild A** Guess)

phrase?)....

Ok I forgot, I use that version.

SWAG, Scientific Wild a** Guess.

WAG, Wild a** Guess.

Depending on how much faith I have in the answer given.

38.2k · January 27, 2005

Swag has been in use since at least the early 1800's.

Edited January 27, 2005 by briansnat

January 27, 2005

I've heard the term since I was pup. I always thought it was Yiddish, but I was wrong. I've seen it as an acronym as well. Googling brings up

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/2001-02-20-weise.htm

"The current meaning of swag — promotional toys — started popping up in the past few years, but if you go back to the 1670s, a "swag shop" was a place that sold "trashy goods." By 1812, swag had taken on the meaning of "the stolen goods carried off by a thief," which fits neatly with the theory held by some in the tech world that swag originally meant pirate booty."

6.5k · January 27, 2005

Swag (or Schwag)

Nope it's always swag. Schwag is what someone might call you if you have too much schwing in your walk!

not that there's anything wrong with that....

January 27, 2005

Well, the Girl Scout leader in me just assumed that SWAG was similar to our SWAPs and thought it meant "Share With Another Geocacher" ROTFLMAO!!

3.9k · January 27, 2005

Swag is standard, if somewhat archaic, British usage. Certainly any native British English speaker would recognise it.

All UK cartoon burglars, up until about the mid 70s at least, would have an eye mask, striper jumper, pot belly, and a big bag over his shoulder with "Swag" written on it.

38.2k · January 27, 2005

I posted the following the last time a question about swag came up here:

Swag has been used as a term for free stuff (giveaways) for some time. It's fairly common slang and I first heard it used in this sense about 8 years ago. According to this, it goes back a loooot further:

In British thieves' slang swag was "a thief's plunder or booty; a quantity of goods unlawfully acquired". The term appears in Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, where one of the definitions is 'any quantity of goods'. James Hardy Vaux, who was a convict in Australia, includes the term in the slang dictionary compiled in 1812 and published in his Memoirs in 1819: 'The Swag is a term used in speaking of any booty you have lately obtained'.

In Australia the term swag was transferred from the quantity of goods acquired by a thief to the possessions carried by a traveller in the bush.

I guess the "Jolly swagman" in the Aussie song, Waltzing Matilda is an example of the latter usage.

Checking my Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary, among the definitions of swag are "goods obtained illegally" and "loot". My guess is the the current meaning has evolved from this usage and the idea that its an acronym for "stuff we all get" is apocryphal and of recent vintage.

Edited January 27, 2005 by briansnat

January 27, 2005

Very well. My real point in starting this thread was:

Has anyone else noticed evidence our geocaching subculture bleeding over into a mainstream culture?

I should have known it would go off track and have 1500 people tell me what an idiot I am for not knowing the term "swag" has been around for centuries, then folks telling them, no, that they got it wrong, it existed before the Big Bang, then replies to that that their definition of "swag" was wrong, then replies to that, ad naseum....

38.2k · January 27, 2005

I don't think anybody was calling you an idiot. You did say "I couldn't help but muse whether or not this geocaching term is beginning to bleed over into mainstream culture". All people did was point out that swag was a common term that has been in use for hundreds of years and not geocaching specfic. .

As far as geocaching bleeding into mainstream culture, no I haven't noticed it, other than that Harry Potter guy stealing the term "muggles" from us.

Edited January 28, 2005 by briansnat

20.7k · January 27, 2005

I wish it was bleeding over. That way I wouldn't get such strange looks when I try to explain the hobby.

1k · January 27, 2005

G'day

Sorry to do this, but the word swag has been an Australian term for at least 100 yeras I reckon and refers to now days as a sort of 4WD bivvey (not one, one would carry) or ones belongings.

Regards

Andrew

January 28, 2005

In answer to the original question, then..... nope, haven't noticed any bleedover at all. Probably more the other way, "normal" words being taken over into Geocaching and given a meaning unique within the 'caching community. Just can't think of any right now, though...brain too tired from long day at work.

5.7k · January 28, 2005

Very well. My real point in starting this thread was:

Has anyone else noticed evidence our geocaching subculture bleeding over into a mainstream culture?

Definitely! I've heard non-geocachers use the term muggle! <_<

--Marky

January 28, 2005

I heard the term way back in highschool. The shop teacher was telling a story about some seminar and mentioned getting a swag bag.

Someone asked what swag was, and he said it stood for "Stuff We All Get" so that's what I thought it meant. Been around at least since the early eighties.

January 28, 2005

I don't think anybody was calling you an idiot.

The term "idiot" was tongue in cheek. Then again, even if folks were calling me an idiot, and I made mention of it, it would not be a result of taking it to heart.

Believe it or not, I'm pretty thick skinned, and, literally, bombproof. <_<

Thanks for clarifying, though.

6.5k · January 28, 2005

In answer to the original question, then..... nope, haven't noticed any bleedover at all. Probably more the other way, "normal" words being taken over into Geocaching and given a meaning unique within the 'caching community. Just can't think of any right now, though...brain too tired from long day at work.

Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner; no idiots here. <_<

Swag is part of the English language. We have assigned it a geospecific meaning in our subculture. The same goes for maggot, pirate, lame, routing, and dozens of words that have developed their own geospecific meanings in our subculture.

Now when Markwelling, and TNLN become listed in the dictionary we'll know we are having the desired effect on the rest of the world. :blink:

Search results
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

You searched for "markwelling" [index]

No page with that title exists

Nope, not there yet....

January 28, 2005

Nope, not there yet....

ROTFLMAO! :blink: Spoke too soon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markwell

Octane Swag

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