I don't use SWAG in my teaching. However, my curiosity was up, and it's
Friday, so I did some Googling.
There seems no doubt that WAG predominantly means wild-assed guess.
However there is considerable discrepancy over what s stands for. Here
are some common ones...
SWAG is even in some on-line dictionaries, and they tend to dual define
it as scientific or silly.
Some other possibilities, also in acronym dictionaries, include... sold
without guarantee, standard written agreement, still wondering and
guessing, stuff we all get, shit we all get, and more... some pretty
crude.
I have found that some students seem to be genuinely hurt when
professors use words or acronyms that have "bad" words in them. When I
was younger, and wanted to make a point, I might have said, "This isn't
just small, it's damn small." But about every time I have said
something like that I have had a student come up after class and ask me
not to swear in class. Personally I never thought damn was that bad,
and was surprised students reacted to it. One the other hand, I know
students who would react badly to damn but then use the word friggin in
almost every sentence. I myself would never use that word.
Go figure. (That doesn't mean anything bad does it?)
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu