In just a week, The New York Times discussed how “Indonesia has seen a spate of deadly attacks by Muslim militants,” a “spate of deadly terror attacks” in Israel and Gaza,” an “oncoming spate of opulent pads” coming on to the New York City real estate market, a “recent spate of accusations” against the comedian Bill Cosby, and “the recent spate of threats against the police” in New York.
In that same week, The Times wrote how the actress Patricia Arquette “has already nabbed a slew of best supporting actress awards,” that the Friday Puzzle had “a whole slew of fun clues,” and that the “Oxford Dictionaries Online welcomed a whole slew of new words.”
And, not to pick on The Times, it also used the week to tell of “a glut of stores in many parts of the country” that was helping to kill the traditional mall, “concerns of an impending glut” of those luxury apartments, “a supply glut” pushing oil and gas prices lower, and a “glut” of university students, gift cards, ebooks, semidistracted drivers, natural gas …
All three words signal a lot of stuff. But each carries its own connotations.
A “spate,” Webster’s New World College Dictionary says, is “an unusually large outpouring, as of words” or “a great number or quantity [a spate of forest fires].” If you’re British, you may know a “spate” to be a flash flood or very heavy rain. The “unusually large” or “great number” in the definitions doesn’t carry any approval or disapproval of the quantity.
But “spate” tends to be more negative than a positive. In nearly 200 Nexis references in our week, only a few skewed positive: a “spate” of grants, or successes, or delightful young adult novels, for example. Most were “spates” of bad things: derailments, burglaries, violence, etc.
WNW defines “slew” as “a large number, group, or amount [a slew of reporters at the crime scene],” with no indication on whether that large number is a good thing or a bad thing. (Can you ever have too many reporters at a crime scene?) It’s also far more common than “spate,” if Nexis hits are any indication: more than 400 hits in the week. Even though “slew” is also the past tense of “slay,” it’s used positively, negatively, and neutrally: Nexis shows a “slew” of injuries, negative comments, and criminal charges (bad); timely football plays, much-needed medical centers, and valuable items (good), as well as just a “slew” of people, players, and sports, mentioned in ways that just mean “a lot.” Most of the time, “slew” tends to be neutral or positive, maybe because it’s fun to say. It’s also considered by the dictionary to be “informal,” meaning a bit slangy.
Then there’s “glut.” You would think that’s bad, because being a “glutton” is bad. WNW defines “glut” (as a verb) as “to eat like a glutton; overindulge” or “to feed, fill, supply, etc. to excess.” The noun definition has less negativity: “a glutting or being glutted” or “a supply of certain goods that is greater than the demand.” But “glut,” used about half as often as “slew” but more frequently than “spate” in our week, seems pretty well balanced between the positive and negative in Nexis. News outlets wrote of a “glut” of lobsters (good for diners, bad for the lobstermen), undelivered e-cards (bad), music festivals (good), street drugs (bad), football games (good, unless you hate football). And a lot of references simply describe what the dictionary definition indicates: an oversupply, with whether that’s a good or bad thing determined by which side of the supply chain you happen to be on.
There’s no greater lesson here, only that there are a passel of ways to describe large quantities, “passel” being among the lesser-used, with a measly dozen Nexis hits. You can find oodles of others with a good thesaurus.
Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl.