A people of persons?

[barnabas_truman]

Here are some amusing collective nouns I have discovered.

a drove of donkeys

a fluther of jellyfish
...alternatively: a flutter of jellyfish, a smack of jellyfish, or a smuck (past tense?) of jellyfish.

a clutter/cluster of spiders

a conspiracy/unkindness/murder of ravens (nasty buggers aren't they?)

a parliament/clamour of rooks

a horde/muster/storytelling of crows (my elderly neighbor also used to call them a "caucus of crows," which I like better)

a siege of herons (nice!)

a phalanx of storks

a wake of vultures

a tiding of magpies (perhaps a reference to folk augury, the magpie counting rhymes?)

a company/pandemonium of parrots

a lepe of leopards (strange that such a word should even exist; aren't leopards solitary in the wild?)


Got any others you'd like to share?

Comments

[elissali.livejournal.com]

an exultation of larks

an apocalypse of astronauts (or beekeepers)

and

a boredom of entomologists

from "Humble Boy" by Charlotte Jones. A wonderful play.

[ellipticcurve.livejournal.com]

Did you miss the book/poster of collective nouns that was all the rage, oh, fifteen years ago? Ghod, I'm old... It was the early '90s version of "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves"--frickin' EVERYONE had this book and/or poster.

Ah, here it is.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

ah, cool!!!

[fools-and-irish.livejournal.com]

According to C.S. Lewis ("The Silver Chair"), it's also a parliament of owls. Would it be a congress of dodos?

[barnabas-truman.livejournal.com]

I've heard "a dunce of dodos," but it was only in one source and he admitted he had just made it up. I prefer "an extinction of dodos" myself.

[fools-and-irish.livejournal.com]

Given recent acts of Congress, I thought it was appropriate.

[temperance14.livejournal.com]

"a fluther of jellyfish
...alternatively: a flutter of jellyfish, a smack of jellyfish, or a smuck (past tense?) of jellyfish."

How about a Smuckers of jellyfish?

[brokenallbroken.livejournal.com]

Odd, I'd always heard it was a "murder" of crows.

a drove of donkeys

ZOMG! Is that why people with doneys are called Drovers? Wow. It all makes sense now.

[fools-and-irish.livejournal.com]

Found a website that provides a list. Not as cool as the poster I once saw on the topic, but informative.

http://www.anapsid.org/beastly.html