Marco.org

This is one of those terms that the rest of the world apparently knew about before I did. As far as I can tell, it’s a euphemism for a mass mail, whether it’s on the business scale (thousands of people) or the personal scale (your email address book). I’ve heard it used equally in business, marketing, and English, but it’s usually used for promotion.

• “We’re launching New Thing tonight and we’re sending out an email blast…”
• “We want to send out weekly email blasts to our users…”
• “Blast out that email…”

Receiving unwanted mass emails, even from your friends, is unpleasant. Therefore, “blast” is a poor word choice. It always sounds corporate, yet gross. You blasted email all over me. Eww.

I propose a change. How about “spew”?

• “Did you send the email spew yet?”
• “We want to spew email all over our users.”

Seems more accurate.