A Tranche of Slews

In this era of global inter-communication it is no wonder that fresh and unfamiliar words, phrases and usages grab our attention pretty often. This phenomenon may not be so apparent to the under twenty-fives who are still building their vocabulary, but it will have had a long, cumulative and sometimes disturbing effect on the more senior of us who thought we knew the English language quite well. Indeed, we may have difficulty in accepting these innovations as being part of our language at all.

But if you know enough about language, it should (in theory) be all the easier to accept these alien intruders; to recognise that in many cases they may not be aliens at all, but revivals of a terminological past.

Years ago I knew nothing of slews or tranches or rafts of things. There might have been 'a lot', or even (with what daring metaphor !) a 'heap', 'stream' or 'flood' of them: but no slews.

Tranches not only look as if they might be French; they are. To the French, a tranche can be a slice of bread, a cut of beef, a plank of wood, or a 'bit' of anything divided. At first the term seems to imply a single piece of some larger object. But when you apply it to (say) a basket of grapes or a wad of bank notes, it becomes clear that it is the act of division that is more significant than the solidity of the original object. Train robbers may each get away with a tranche of the loot.

The word 'share' comes to mind: and the word is indeed used in the financial context to signify a proportion or a 'block' of shares.

Our English 'trench' was derived from French tranche - a slice cut out of the ground.

As for slews and rafts, we'll have to investigate them a little later.

A Tranche of Slews