In droves
If people do something “in droves,” they do it in large numbers. Don’t ask me what a “drove” is; this is one of those words that we only use as part of this expression. We often use this word with verbs like coming, going, arriving, appearing, attending, things like that.
In today’s lesson, you heard that protesters arrived in downtown Ottawa in droves ; one estimate said there were 4,000 vehicles and 15,000 people. That is a lot for a relatively small city like Ottawa, which is not used to large protests. “They arrived in droves” means, they arrived in large numbers.
Do you remember the lessons we did on the immersive Van Gogh experience? People came out in droves to see the Van Gogh immersive, electronic experience. That means, large crowds of people went to see those exhibitions. People came out in droves to see those experiences, which was somewhat frustrating to museum directors. They try hard to get people to see the real art they have preserved—sometimes real Van Gogh paintings. But people came out in droves to see the simulated version, which cost a lot more.
If you’ve ever traveled to the U.S., you may have noticed that we have a lot of strange laws about alcohol. For one thing, you have to be 21 years old to legally buy alcohol. For another, we have “dry counties” where no alcohol can be sold in the entire county. Many states have strange rules about what time of day you can buy alcohol, how much you can buy at a time, where you can buy it, what kind of packaging it comes in. I’m in Mexico still, and you can buy a single beer at Oxxo, a convenience store, and just take it home. In the U.S., you have to buy a six-pack.
Well any time people want to change the laws about alcohol, people come out in droves to oppose the change. A lot of people don’t want looser rules around alcohol, and they come out in droves to make their opinions heard whenever anyone wants to change the rules. That means they attend public meetings, they organize letter writing campaigns, they have protests. You never hear from a lot of these people on any other political issue, but if a state or county wants to liberalize alcohol laws, people come out in droves, they come out in large numbers, to oppose the change.
In these examples, you can visualize a lot of people doing something together. But it doesn’t always have to be that way. Cable television used to be a standard amenity in American households, but people are canceling their pay television in droves. They’d rather the flexibility and better technology of streaming services. In this example, a lot of people are doing this, but they’re not doing it together.
It’s often said that people are leaving California in droves. The state has a high cost of living, high taxes, and heavy business regulation. And especially after the pandemic, a lot of Californians have decided to move out of state; fewer and fewer people have decided to move into California. Now that remote work is popular option in the technology industry, a lot of people have decided to move out of the state.
If you talk to people in Texas, or in some western cities like Denver, Salt Lake City, and Boise, they’ll tell you that people are arriving in droves from California. That means the people in those cities have noticed a lot of people from California moving to their cities.
Quote of the Week
Here’s a funny quote from the comedian George Carlin. I can’t give you many quotes from George Carlin without putting an “explicit content” advisory in Apple Podcasts, but I can give you this one. We were talking about the truckers, and how they drove all the way from the western provinces to Ottawa. Here’s a funny quote from George Carlin: “Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.”
It’s funny because it’s true, we do judge people pretty harshly on the road. “Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.”
See you next time!
That’s about it for today’s lesson, number 448. Remember, the full lesson is available online at PlainEnglish.com/448. That’s where you can follow along with the transcript, see translations of the hardest words, watch a video lesson, and get some extra practice. We’ll be back again on Thursday with a new Plain English lesson. See you then!
Use realistic expressions like a native speaker
