The Word “Swine” Is Scarier Than The Word “Flu”

"Swinegate" is what we'll call this panic if it turns out to be the fault of someone powerful.

Before the recent panic, when was the last time you heard yourself using the word “swine”? Two choices:

1. Quoting Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction when you were smoking pot circa 1994.

2. Reciting a prayer or a bible reading when you were a kid in Sunday school.

One reason that the bible you were reading in answer #2 didn’t just use the word “pigs” is that “swine” is probably more accurate, referring to boars and other wild pig-like animals as well as domesticated pigs raised to become pork.

Another reason, though, is that calling the animals “swine” allows us to make a distinction. A distinction, that is, between the bacon we buy at Applewood, and the swine before whom pearls must not be cast. (Cafepress has a different way of looking at it.) Read the rest of this entry »