What does “swell” mean?

Are you reading a nineteenth-century novel and have you come across a reference to a man characterized as “a swell?”  It isn’t commonly used today in this sense. If you haven’t seen Judy Garland and Fred Astaire singing “We’re a Couple of Swells” in Easter Parade, you may infer from the context of the novel what the word means, but then the scholarly researcher in you might feel the need to verify your interpretation.  Where to turn?  Why, the Oxford English Dictionary (or OED) of course!

Clicking on the “Encyclopedias & More” tab on the Penrose Library homepage, we can then click on Oxford English Dictionary to access this classic dictionary to the etymology of English words.  The OED provies definitions for words, with examples of the use of the word in that sense from the first time it appeared in a print source and thereafter.  Searching “swell” in the Quick Search box, we limit to the word as a noun, and browse through the definitions which include the obsolete “morbid swelling” as well as those that are still relevant: “the condition of being swollen, distended or increased in bulk,” “the rising or heaving of the sea,” “a piece of land rising gradually and evenly,” “a sound, esp. musical,” “a contrivance for gradually varying the force of the tone in an organ,” and a “lever in a loom,” until we come to definition number 8b, “proud or arrogant.”

This definition sounds plausible until we see 9a, slang for  “A fashionably or stylishly dressed person; hence, a person of good social position, a highly distinguished person,” which was used consistently in this sense, when referring to an individual, throughout the nineteenth century.

How else might we know this is the sense in which the word was meant, although in a more derogatory fashion?  Why Lily Dale tells us herself in Trollope’s The Small House at Allington,” in which she describes Mr. Crosbie as “a swell,” and Trollope concurs: “Mr. Crosbie was a swell.” Rebuked by her sister Bell, who says “I don’t like those slang words, Lily,” Lily replies, “Oh; a swell. I fancy I do like slang.  I think it’s awfully jolly to talk of things being jolly.  Only that I was afraid of your nerves I should have called him stunning.  It’s so slow, you know, to use nothing but words out of a dictionary” (chapter  2).

But it is “stunning” (“Excellent, first-rate, ‘splendid’, delightful; extremely attractive or good-looking”) to find meanings to words from previous eras in such a fascinating dictionary.  Explore the English language via Oxford English Dictionary, and enjoy the richness of our language over time.

You may have noticed that several social sciences databases have a new look.  Those databases formerly on the CSA Illumina platform, including Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, and ERIC, are now searched through the Proquest interface.  Although you can still search these databases in much the same way as before, there are a few changes about which you should be aware.  This discussion is focused on Sociological Abstracts.

The first difference you will notice is that the search interface doesn’t have three boxes for terms connected by an OR on each line. This change is easily remedied by typing as many alternative terms as you desire on the same line. For example, you can enter the search query below:

If you want to search with an exact phrase, you will get the most precise results if you put the phrase in quotes, (e.g., “high school*”).

After you conduct your keyword search, your results will be displayed by a relevancy ranking rather than the former chronological display.  If you prefer to see the most recently published sources, then change the sort in the drop-down menu to “Publication date (most recent first).”

Instead of selecting peer-reviewed journals or another source type by tabs, in the new interface you can limit results in your initial search by marking the “Peer-reviewed” box or by narrowing the results by source type after the search is executed.

Before when you searched Sociological Abstracts, you would need to scan the subject headings listed to the right of each citation in order to determine those most common and relevant for your search topic. The Proquest interface, however, has a “Subject” facet that enables you to view the most common subject terms for your search overall.  In the example below, we see that there are headings for two of our terms, Adolescents and Youth, and more specific headings for High School Students and Black Americans.

One of the main differences between searching with the old and new interface is that the “Descriptor” field has been replaced with a “Subject heading (all)” field. Consequently, if you want to search using an exact descriptor (e.g., subject heading) rather than searching for terms to appear in the subject heading field, you will need to follow one of three paths.

One option is to select your subject heading from the “Look up Subjects” browse list that appears when you choose “Subject heading” from the drop-down menu and add it to your search.

Another option is to find your term in the thesaurus and then add the exact heading to your search.

You can also choose to type the word EXACT followed by your subject heading in parentheses and make sure to select the “Subject heading (all)” field from the drop-down menu.

All of these options will guarantee that the database searches for those sources that have been assigned the exact subject heading you have selected.

To find additional subject heading terms related to our topic, we could proceed to check the Thesaurus of Sociological Indexing Terms. The thesaurus functions much as it did before, however, instead of the rotated index option to find your term anywhere within a subject heading, you now use the “Contains word(s)” option.  If you would like to view related terms for a specific subject heading, you will need to click on the folder icon to the right of the term, as illustrated in the figure below. You can then paste selected subject headings to your search, if you like.

Be sure to consult the “Search Tips” section for more advice about searching Sociological Abstracts with the Proquest interface, which is located just above the search box, or consult the Proquest Sociological Abstracts LibGuide.  You can also contact the Research Center with any questions.

You can find this type of information in a database called Passport GMID. To access it take the following steps:

1. Go to the library homepage at library.du.edu.
2. Click on the “Databases” tab and then click on the letter “P.”
3. From the list of databases. Click on Passport GMID.
4. You will be prompted to enter your DU username and password – do so.
5. Accept the terms of use by clicking on the “Accept” button provided at the bottom.

6. Once in the database, click on the black “search” button on the upper left side.

7. Click on “Advanced text” search and enter adspend in the search box. You can deselect “Analysis” and “Info Sources” on the left side in order to retrieve only Statistics.

When you are entering the keyword in the search box you will be able to select from several types of data, including TV adspend, Online adspend, and Total adspend. Select the one you want and run the search.

8. From the results link click on “Countries and Consumers Annual Data Statistics” to retrieve worldwide data as well as by country.

9. Once you access the chart, you will see six years of data for the world and individual countries. Y

10. You can use the time series option located on the left side if you want to change the range of years you want to use.