Comments on: A Menagerie of Animals

A Menagerie of Animals

nthdegx — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:07:54 -0800

Oxford's guide to collective terms for animals is a useful and fascinating although all-too-brief resource. Collective terms for birds are some of my favourites: an unkindness of ravens; a murmuration of starlings; a richness of martens. Bees and sheep seem to have a lot of collective terms. I can't imagine why. Altogether, though, I found one of the terms for for ferrets to be the pick of the bunch.

By: gottabefunky

gottabefunky — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:19:55 -0800

English is such a great language. A bloat of hippopotamuses A whoop of gorillas An ambush of tigers ("possibly fanciful")

By: alms

alms — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:22:03 -0800

A lot of used carsalesmen (or maybe a heap of them) A hack of writers A brief of lawyers A promise of politicians

By: y2karl

y2karl — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:22:33 -0800

I have always favored the grouping An Exhaltation of Larks, myself--ever since seeing and getting the book entitled the same, I have been looking for something a little less lightweight on the topic. Thanks--this is cool..

By: alms

alms — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:24:58 -0800

The definitive book on the subject is, btw, An Exaltation of Larks.

By: mookieproof

mookieproof — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:25:40 -0800

A covert of coots.

By: jennyb

jennyb — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:29:29 -0800

a coffle of asses Surely I can find a use for this phrase at work...

By: scody

scody — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:38:21 -0800

I have been trying, without much success, to work the phrase "an exaltation of larks" into casual conversation for some time now. Not many larks to comment on in L.A., apparently, so there's the rub. (A coffle of asses -- now there's a phrase I feel certain could be used in this town rather easily.) I've always wondered whether this phenomenon occurs in other languages, or is just a splendid quirk of English. (Languagehat, I'm glancing inquiringly in your direction.) I can order more than one beer in French, German or Irish, but I can't say I've ever come across the need to refer to a group of magpies ("comment d'it-on tittering?").

By: brittney

brittney — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:49:54 -0800

I will forever refer to 3 or more deer as a "flock of deers" after my nephew coined it one sunny afternoon, thereby preventing me from smashing into said deer with my Mercury Lynx.

By: JohnR

JohnR — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:58:17 -0800

I stayed in a motel in Big Rapids, Mi. and wandered about one cold winter night and saw maybe a few thousand crows behind the motel. A 'murder' of crows.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:17:24 -0800

Rebecca Blood has been collecting collective nouns for goths for some time now. Fun word game.

By: silusGROK

silusGROK — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:23:33 -0800

A sorrow of whores.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:24:03 -0800

This could easily extend to online communities, you know: A stack of MeFites. A paroxysm of Freepers. A hat of Farkers. A cesspool of Gawkers. What? A grep of Slashdotters. ad nauseam

By: hammurderer

hammurderer — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 14:34:20 -0800

A grep of Slashdotters. That's awesome!

By: wanderingmind

wanderingmind — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:04:07 -0800

It took me a while to get 'a stack of MeFites', but when I tried coming up with something better, I realized just how much sense it made, being apropos to things that stack, things that come in stacks, and the thing that stacks stacks of things (on its dearly departed head). Actually, I just like saying "stack". Stack stack stack.

By: furiousthought

furiousthought — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:04:52 -0800

A brawl of MeFites, maybe?

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:19:00 -0800

I still think it should be a gomorrah of Saddams.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:20:36 -0800

"I still think it should be a gomorrah of Saddams." How about a a kaboodle of kittens?

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:21:09 -0800

Or just a kaboodle. Whatever works for you.

By: John Shaft

John Shaft — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:25:04 -0800

A load of bollocks. with apologies to Messrs Smith and Jones

By: cx

cx — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 15:35:55 -0800

I like a murder of crows. You have to say it in the right tone of voice, of course. But this is fun! An obstinancy of buffalo. A glaring of cats. A chattering of choughs. A covert of coots. A cloud of gnats A cry of hounds A fluther of jellyfish. A stud of mares (?!?) A pandemonium of parrots A parliament of owls A congregation of plovers A turmoil of porpoises A crash of rhinoceros A dopping of sheldrake A wisp of snipe A destruction of wild cats A zeal of zebras And John Shaft, it is actually a drove of bullocks! =)

By: mdn

mdn — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:06:47 -0800

how is it decided what's "fanciful'? Specifically, how is an unkindness of ravens or a murder of crows not fanciful? I mean, I understand that these are terms widely used, but they clearly stem from a poetic place, no?

By: carter

carter — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:46:19 -0800

A 'bike of ants'? But how do their feet reach the pedals?

By: Guy Smiley

Guy Smiley — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 16:58:11 -0800

The term for three conies or hounds is a couple and a half?

By: djseafood

djseafood — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:28:52 -0800

A cackle of goths. A keg of fratboys.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 18:10:56 -0800

I've always wondered whether this phenomenon occurs in other languages, or is just a splendid quirk of English. (Languagehat, I'm glancing inquiringly in your direction.) This is a good question, and I've wondered about it myself. First, read this short and well-written article on the English terms (there's a very funny joke near the end). I suspect that English may be unique because the influence of the very popular Book of St Albans of 1486 (discussed therein) is unlikely to have been duplicated in other countries. I'm sure hunters elsewhere had comparable terms, but they would have stayed within the professional circle (so to speak) and never have penetrated the wider world of literature, and thus would have died out with the premodern culture of hunting. But it's possible that other languages have comparably specific terms (though probably without the facetious additions) that simply don't show up in bilingual dictionaries, like other rare words that aren't of much use to anyone but specialists. If I find out more, I'll report back. Meanwhile, we should keep in mind the words of wisdom with which the Quinion article concludes:

We've got to make a distinction, of course, between these fanciful or poetic collective names and the many examples we use every day, like pride of lions, pack of dogs, flight of stairs, flock of birds, string of racehorses, and gaggle of geese. These are common and unremarkable, though in some cases hardly less exotic and mysterious in origin than any in The Book of St Albans all those years ago.

By: aeschenkarnos

aeschenkarnos — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 19:08:55 -0800

Exactly, Languagehat. It's a form of poetry, that's all. Generally speaking, in explanatory writing the collective noun for a group of {insert noun here} is "group". Terms like "alliance" or "family" or "infestation" or "forest" are contextually useful to imply a relationship among the members of the group, or a rationale for their selection from the set of all possible things. Otherwise, I would suggest only using the common usage ones, unless you have some reason to write poetically (even as flimsy a reason as impressing a threadsworth of Metafilterites).

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 19:58:29 -0800

I've always wondered whether this phenomenon occurs in other languages It's very common in Japanese.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 20:39:35 -0800

Sorry, SPrintF, but that's not really the same. Most East Asian languages (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Lao, and Burmese, for instance, as well as Japanese) have what are called "classifiers" separating numerals from nouns. We have this to a limited extent in English (a piece of string, a pair of shoes), but they have it for just about everything: you can't say "one person," you have to say "one piece person" (in Chinese, i ge ren). There is usually a general classifier (Chinese ge) that can be used if you don't want to be bothered with the exact one, and a bunch of specific ones for trees, animals, long thin things, flat things, you name it. While superficially similar to the collective terms we're discussing, one obvious difference is that they're used for a single item, person, etc., as well as a group. Another is that, as far as I know, none of these languages has specific classifiers for each species of animal. Nice try, though.

By: jazon

jazon — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 21:17:03 -0800

For some reason, one of the oldest links in my bookmarks file is The Collective Noun Page, featuring such gems as: A Sodom of shepherds A Sousa of marching bands A Rand of Objectivists A passel of brats A magnum of hitmen and much much more

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 21:45:29 -0800

Stolen from jazon's link: Metafilter: A posse of cock-turkeys.

By: deborah

deborah — Mon, 13 Jan 2003 22:36:01 -0800

i wonder if, at least in part, this quirk of the English language is because it "borrows" so heavily from other languages.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Tue, 14 Jan 2003 15:05:30 -0800

...an overabundance of lawyers/used car salesmen/other low creatures...

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sat, 18 Jan 2003 06:33:22 -0800

Here are the Portuguese terms, courtesy of the Enigmatic Mermaid. Perhaps when Miguel returns he can translate some of the better ones for us.

By: Vidiot

Vidiot — Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:43:29 -0800

A sorrow of whores. A pride of loins? An essay of trollops?