Question

In the early 1700s, the average person in England consumed an estimated four pounds of sugar a year. A century later he was gulping down eighteen pounds. In one hundred years, the amount of sugar an English person used had increased by 450 percent. And that was before sugar really took off.

–Sugar Changed the World,
Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

What is the denotation of the word gulping?

What is the connotation of the word gulping?

Answer 1

Denotation: swallowing quickly or in large mouthfuls; consuming rapidly (e.g., to gulp down a drink or food).

Connotation: a vivid, informal verb that suggests eagerness, voraciousness, even greed or lack of restraint. Here it casts sugar consumption as hurried and excessive, giving the increase a negative, almost animalistic or compulsive flavor.