On Wednesday, December 08, 2004, at 05:09PM, Shannon Wimberly <shannon3d at yahoo.com> wrote: >While I respect wikipedia's opinion in this matter, it's entirely possible that the word (like most slang) has more than one origination. While this is entirely true, I humbly assert that if the word origin is sufficiently fulfilled by the previously given definition and alternate spellings ("schwag", "shwag") break the acronym, it's more likely that the older definition is a more accurate etymology. > Given that promotional merchandise is not at all stollen or looted property but instead is often useless and overwhelming crap that after consideration you don't really want, I'm sticking to the definition provided by the industry pushers that have taken over my garage, my porch and my guest room. While not stolen in the strictest sense of the word, haven't you ever referred to the pile of christmas/birthday gifts you've gotten as "loot"? I think it's fairly common to refer to gifts/free crap that you pick up as "loot", which is easily transmuted to "swag"/"schwag"/"shwag". Ehn. It don't matter either way. Now, about those Playstation pens... ;) Matthew Klahn