Hogs, pigs. Pigs, hogs. What’s the difference?
More than you might guess.
That much is clear from the strange case of a Tacoma guy who claims the city ordinance forbidding the keeping of “hogs” doesn’t apply to his “pig.” Judson W. Morris III must have the hair-splittingest lawyer this side of Bill Clinton, right?
Well, this particular bristle proved surprisingly easy to split: Morris beat city prosecutors in both municipal and superior court. It turned out that his pet “Pig-pig” – a Vietnamese pot-belly sow – was less of a hog than most city-slickers might assume.
The city insisted that “hog,” “pig,” and “swine” mean the same thing – and pulled out dictionaries to prove it. But Morris and his attorney, Guarav Sharma, actually got a vet to certify that hogs are castrated male swine. Pig-pig therefore couldn’t be a hog because it was a female.
One of Sharma’s arguments was truly lawyerly. He noted that a dictionary cited by the city defined “hog” also as a motorcycle. Did that mean Tacoma outlawed the keeping of Harleys?
As it happens, other dictionaries back Morris up, especially Black’s Veterinary Dictionary, which defines a hog as a “male pig after being castrated.”
The Collins Essential English Dictionary’s first definition of hog is a “castrated male pig.” Encarta defines hog as “a full-grown domestic pig, especially a castrated male pig.”
The history of the word “hog” doesn’t help the city’s side of the argument, either. It’s apparently a close cousin of the Old Norse “hoggva” – which means “to cut” (as in castrate).
So it seems that all hogs are pigs, but all pigs are not necessarily hogs. That conclusion was reached after two years, multiple interventions by the health department, arguments from two city attorneys, hearings in municipal and superior court. This momentous case hogged an ungodly amount of court time and professional talent.
Let’s end this with a few pertinent factoids:
A breeding pig is a “boar.” A castrated male is a “barrow.” A female pig isn’t a sow until she has “farrowed” a litter of piglets; before then, she’s a “gilt.” A weaned pig weighing 40 pounds or less is a “weaner.” “Brawn” is boar’s meat. St. Anthony is the patron saint of swineherds.
Got all that straight? Neither does the City of Tacoma.
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