WHEN SWILL IS SWELL

“Swell” and “swill.” One letter separates them. But what a meaning difference it makes.  

“Swill,” I remember as a term of my youth. It was common when people lived on farms.  There, the family’s pigs received, as feed, the “swill,” what was leftover from the kitchen. Naturally, a negative connotation followed. After all “swill’ was that which was rejected.  

“Swell,” by contrast, carries a positive connotation.   Initially it was a neutral term, it indicated a natural formation, something like a hill, or a gentle ocean wave. Today, the term’s more common use is in line with expressions of satisfaction and affirmation.  Two examples: the expression “that’s swell;” the 1937 song “Gee, but you’re swell.” In Easter Parade, Judy Garland

and Fred Astaire, dressed as hobos, got ironic mileage with their song “A bunch of swells.”

Could hobos be “swells”?  No and yes. If to be a “swell” meant well-dressed, then hobos would never fit the bill.  If, though, “swell” meant lovable, as in the song “Gee, but you’re swell,” then character would supersede clothing. Hobos could indeed be “swells.”

“Swill” is more uniformly derisive. Some of what accompanies the preparation of a meal is excluded, set apart, tossed out.  It is appropriately named “refuse.” Yet, even “swill” can undergo a valuational shift.

Take potato peelings. At one time, they fell into the category of that- which-is-to-be-discarded, i.e. “swill.” Today, we are

advised, for health reasons, to to eat our potatoes with their peels. What was once swill is now swell.  

It would be hard to find a human community that did not distinguish swell from swill, better from worse.  There is a lingering temptation, though, to reify the distinction. This results in the creation of an irrevocable, non-revisable, two-column list.  One side is labelled “good,” the other “bad.” We here come face to face with a lingering temptation: create a neat, oppositional, good/evil list. The temptation even has an official, historically-informed, name: Manichaeism.  This was a movement, based on a 3d century Babylonian prophet named Mani. It taught that creation had two sources, two ultimate powers, one good, the other evil. The two- value, double column list was little more than the practical application of this cosmic battleground.  

Any neat division equipped with  unquestionable valuations is bound to occasion a backlash (especially among the groups who fall on the negative side of things).  That reaction, quite understandable, can, nonetheless, be overdone. The excess lies in a proclamation that appraisals are nothing more than subjective impositions. Rather than leave neat bifurcations behind, this position simply creates another one: subjective vs objective. The Manichean assumes that existing value judgments are rooted in objective data.  The subjectivist claims that all evaluations are arbitrary, historically conditioned, contrivances. Either/or is not overcome. It is just reformulated.

“Swell” and “swill” help draw us into a more nuanced, more genuinely human, position.   “He’s a swell” was a way of identifying a spiffy dresser. Objective conditions, the kind of clothing worn, were readily identifiable. Then, as with “you’re swell,” the positive valuation was extended to character.

At this point the evaluation becomes a bit trickier. Without the obvious markers of expensive, stylish clothing,  mistakes are possible. Still the value determination is not just “subjective.” It’s a judgment. This means that although it has a subjective dimension (someone is doing the judging), it also has an objective one (the assessment is based on evidence, behavior, indications of character).

Similarly, what we judge to be “swill” can be up for for revision.  Potato peels, as mentioned above, can move from “swill” to “fit for our diet.”  This is not a purely subjective construction. It arises from information about the nutritional properties of potato skins and the physiological needs of mammals like ourselves.

Could we be wrong? Sure, that’s always a possibility. Future research may once again move potato skins from

“swell for humans” to “swill for pigs” The possibility of error is telling. It’s a sign of human inquiry.  Absolutists and relativists seek an escape from human limitations. One proclaims a perfect, already established, vision of truth. The other dismisses the human struggle to discover more fully accurate truths. Humans, it says, do not establish what is the case, but rather impose values.

For ordinary humans, though, enhanced intelligent awareness can mean that “swill” becomes “swell” and vice versa.