I had never heard the term SWAG, though I am of the generation that is
familiar with the pre-SI rch unit, which I certainly have never used in
teaching. As far as the word swag goes, its primary meaning in my
hemisphere (northern) is Bernard Cleyet's "booty", or ill-got gains.
However in another part of the English speaking world it has another
meaning. From OED (second edition, 1989):
10. Austral. and N.Z. The bundle of personal belongings carried by a
traveller in the bush, a tramp, or a miner. Freq. in colloq. phrases
"to hump the swag": see HUMP v. 2; on the swag: on one's travels.
(I have had to edit this a bit because when I paste it in, lots of
formatting comes along that won't go through to phys-l. When will we
get html? Dan? There are a dozen other meanings for the noun "swag" in
the OED, but not the one Charles Bell asked about.)
You will recall that there is a "swagman" in "Waltzing Matilda". In Oz
students routinely hump the swag all day, and unselfconsciously at
that. I get titters from my class when I refer to the Wednesday of week
seven in a thirteen week semester as "hump day". (We're over the hump
now, so expect to start going faster.) It is akin to the reaction we
got back in the fifties at Berkeley when we informed some Australian
visitors we were taking to a football game that we would be sitting in
the rooting section.