swing

When we listen to music, many of us click our fingers or stamp our feet in time with the music. With most popular music, (including most rock, heavy metal, dance, etc.), the beat is on the one and three. (Take a song and try it, counting the beats as you click - you'll most likely find yourself clicking on the one and three. If you click on all four beats, slow down to half speed.)
(N.B. I am talking about music in 4/4 time).
When music is swinging, you'll find yourself clicking on the two and four. That's how you know it's swinging (aside from feeling it in your guts.)

The two main genresof music that swings are :
Jazz and Reggae

To have a good time, as when one swings with some swingin' cats.

1970s on: A married couple that seeks other married couples in order to trade partners for sex is said to swing; the act itself is known as swinging, and the participants are swingers.

A film directed by Nick Mead, and produced by Tapestry Films and The Kushner-Locke Company, starring Hugo Speer (of The Full Monty fame), Lisa Stansfield (the singer), Alexei Sayle (comedian and former loud landlord from The Young Ones), Nerys Hughes (from The Liverbirds), Rita Tushingham, Tom Bell, and Danny McCall.

Martin (Speer) leaves prison and decides to set up a swing band: he's learnt the saxophone in prison and can play it rather well (presumably it was a fairly long stint). He goes looking for his ex-girlfriend to get her to front the band. She is now married though, to his arresting officer, who likes to wear policeman pjyamas and has a problem with premature ejaculation. The girlfriend (Joan) decides to help him out anyway, and, of course, gradually realises that she still loves him, and never really loved the policeman at all. Ho hum.

The band gradually assembles - a footballing double-bassist, an ex-fascist-punk drummer and a brass section composed of Orange Order bandsmen: given the Catholic nature of Martin's family, this is not the best of ideas. Alexei Sayle heads the brass - when he first arrives to hear the band, he utters one of the film's best lines: 'If you're shite, we're walking'. Smashing. The band, in the time honoured tradition of this sort of film (The Full Monty, The Commitments, Brassed Off) begin fairly abysmally, and then, suddenly, after some montage sequences, are excellent. And they are too - the music is by far the most compelling aspect of the film.

There's further shenanigans with problematic brothers, discontented fathers, fights, skinheads, and a lunatic lottery winner - needless to say, it all ends well. Of course it does: it is, by far, the most contrived and assembled-from-the-best-bits-of-others films I have seen. Watching it is like watching a documentary on what to have in a British film (music, violence, humour, jokes about people not being good at sex, some more jokes about people wanting to have sex, a chip van, some more music, a comedian being serious... all standard fare). The problem, though, is that making a film by assembling the best bits of others is precisely how not to make a film. It shows.

It does hold together, but the audience really has to want it to. Stansfield is great, Sayle, funny, and the music stunning. That's about it. But worth watching for those alone.

Swing is a windowing class library for Java.

Initially Swing was part of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC), a separate API distribution from Sun, before it was integrated into the standard Java class library with the Java 2 platform and JDK 1.2.

Prior to Swing, Java's only standard tool for creating GUIs was the Abstract Windowing Toolkit, or AWT. AWT uses calls into the native operating system to create graphical controls and windows, and therefore applications written using AWT take on much of the look and feel of the underlying windowing system. Because AWT is dependant on native system calls, it is termed a heavyweight class library.

Contrastingly, Swing is lightweight, meaning that is uses no native system calls, except those used by AWT, upon which it is dependant. Swing renders its window controls using primitive draw instructions, and therefore applications built with Swing have a specifically Swing look and feel rather than that of the OS. This is both good and bad, as it gives applications more control over their appearance than AWT applications, but also may appear disconcerting to end users.

to swing

To be hanged.

He will swing for it ; he will be hanged for it.

swinging

A great swinging fellow ; a great stout fellow.

A swinging lie ; a lusty lie.

swing tail

A hog.

The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Swing (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Swung (?); Archaic imp. Swang (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Swinging.] [OE. swingen, AS. swingan to scourge, to fly, to flutter; akin to G. schwingen to winnow, to swingle, oscillate, sich schwingen to leap, to soar, OHG. swingan to throw, to scourge, to soar, Sw. svinga to swing, to whirl, Dan. svinge. Cf. Swagger, Sway, Swinge, Swink.]

1.

To move to and fro, as a body suspended in the air; to wave; to vibrate; to oscillate.

I tried if a pendulum would swing faster, or continue swinging longer, in case of exsuction of the air. Boyle.

2.

To sway or move from one side or direction to another; as, the door swung open.

3.

To use a swing; as, a boy swings for exercise or pleasure. See Swing, n., 3.

4. Naut.

To turn round by action of wind or tide when at anchor; as, a ship swings with the tide.

5.

To be hanged.

[Colloq.]

D. Webster.

To swing round the circle, to make a complete circuit. [Colloq.]

He had swung round the circle of theories and systems in which his age abounded, without finding relief. A. V. G. Allen.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Swing, v. t.

1.

To cause to swing or vibrate; to cause to move backward and forward, or from one side to the other.

He swings his tail, and swiftly turns his round. Dryden.

They get on ropes, as you must have seen the children, and are swung by their men visitants. Spectator.

2.

To give a circular movement to; to whirl; to brandish; as, to swing a sword; to swing a club; hence, colloquially, to manage; as, to swing a business.

<-- or, to accomplish -->

3. Mach.

To admit or turn (anything) for the purpose of shaping it; -- said of a lathe; as, the lathe can swing a pulley of 12 inches diameter.

To swing a door, gate, etc. Carp., to put it on hinges so that it can swing or turn.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Swing (?), n.

1.

The act of swinging; a waving, oscillating, or vibratory motion of a hanging or pivoted object; oscillation; as, the swing of a pendulum.

2.

Swaying motion from one side or direction to the other; as, some men walk with a swing.

3.

A line, cord, or other thing suspended and hanging loose, upon which anything may swing; especially, an apparatus for recreation by swinging, commonly consisting of a rope, the two ends of which are attached overhead, as to the bough of a tree, a seat being placed in the loop at the bottom; also, any contrivance by which a similar motion is produced for amusement or exercise.

4.

Influence of power of a body put in swaying motion.

The ram that batters down the wall, For the great swing and rudeness of his poise, They place before his hand that made the engine. Shak.

5.

Capacity of a turning lathe, as determined by the diameter of the largest object that can be turned in it.

6.

Free course; unrestrained liberty or license; tendency.

"Take thy swing."

Dryden.

To prevent anything which may prove an obstacle to the full swing of his genius. Burke.

Full swing. See under Full. -- Swing beam Railway Mach., a crosspiece sustaining the car body, and so suspended from the framing of a truck that it may have an independent lateral motion. -- Swing bridge, a form of drawbridge which swings horizontally, as on a vertical pivot. -- Swing plow, ∨ Swing plough. (a) A plow without a fore wheel under the beam. (b) A reversible or sidehill plow. -- Swing wheel. (a) The scape-wheel in a clock, which drives the pendulum. (b) The balance of a watch.

 

© Webster 1913.