Crazy collective nouns & where they came from
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- Let's explore English's many weird collective nouns! And remember to head to squarespace.co... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code "robwords".
🥚 A gaggle of geese
📊 A business of ferrets
🎓 A school of fish
🔪 A murder of crows
🦊 A skulk of foxes
⏱ An impatience of wives (seriously)
Where on earth did we get all of these strange words for groups of things? Find out in this latest RobWords, where we do some of our own linguistic archaeology.
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As a ferret owner, can confirm most ferret owners DO refer to a group of ferrets as a business. Even if it's just 2 (in which case they usually call themselves a “small business owner” as a joke)
😂🤣😅 I love it
This is freaking adorable
@@anastasiafalcon4637 we dont eat þe ferrets falcon.🤣👍
So. one ferret would be a sole proprietorship?
@@CAMacKenzie honestly either way it's more like a busyness than a business
I still remember in the adult animated show with anthropomorphic animals Bojack Horseman, one character at a formal party is taking to a ferret alone and ends the chat with "I'll let you get back to your business." as the character rejoins other ferrets and I smiled sooooo much
I just had to reply because you have the same name as me.
Is the collective noun of lesbians a lick? Or was someone just pulling my leg.
I didn't catch up that one when I was watching the series! The writers are truly geniuses
A handful of wankers.
When I was in the hotel industry, some of us made up some appropriate 'trade' collectives for fun. We had a decision of managers, a booking of receptionists, a recipe of cooks, a service of waiters, a round of barmen, a cleanse of housekeepers and so on. 😅
That is truly amazing and clever 😂 thanks for sharing!
as valid a collection as a pride of lions or a coven of witches. good work, well done.
how about a fine of ticket inspectors?
A sweeping of janitors and a wrenching of maintenance workers
Anger of Arabs?
as a beekeeper, who likes to ride bikes........ i can safely say, its not a "bike of bees"
if they are in their established hive, its a "colony"....... if they are moving out, and in between hives, its a "swarm"..... if they abandon their home, its an "absconce" ...... if they all die inside their hive, its a "deadout".......... if the colony is new and small, its a "nuc" (short for nucleus) ................ if its a random queen, with random bees, in a temporary box, its a "Package"............................ and if youre me, they are "friends"
That's cool. :)
I can't remember where I heard this, but I believe that a "bike" was an old term for a sort of bell-shaped beehive made from straw.
@@Kevin-mx1vi I think about my military prep school days when the lower grades (6 to 8, "Goober School") were instructed in one classroom building and billeted in one set of barracks, but they ate in the same mess hall as the senior school, but on a different schedule. There were separate commandants for the junior school and the senior school, and one of the senior school cadets, watching the less-than-orderly progress of the younger students toward Polk Hall remarked, "Look at Major Fly swarming to the mess hall with the Goobers"
Well said.
An absence of waiters is still one of my favorites
😅
Thanks for the tip
Here in germany the most absent employes are the staff of hardware stores😂
Irony😊
My son is fascinated by these words and likes to invent his own. We live in an area with lots of seniors, who seem to just randomly bunch up in groups, impeding the movement of everyone else. So he calls them a "clot of seniors". After recently being around some teenage girls, he's calling them a "giggle of girls", which I think is has a nice similarity to gaggle of women.
A giggle of girls is cute and clever.
Your son needs a better hobby.
too funny
That's very cute, actually 😅
Since boys tend to be a bit nervous around girls, one might call a group a bumbling of boys.
My favorite group is that of ravens, which can also be called a “conspiracy”, so one time when my mom learned this, she told us, than made a meme, it was a picture of a lot of ravens, with the caption: “IT’S A CONSPIRACY”, very few people got it.
I now also love “an oversubscription of TH-camrs”
W mom
One of my Facebook posts during the pandemic was the obscure "Corvid - Conspiracy or Murder". Few people got the joke.
They can also be known as an Unkindness
Both are correct :)
I saw a comic strip that called a group of lawyers a "conspiracy." :>)
@@brucestiles6477 I thought that was a bunch of sharks? Or was I thinking about bankers? But what I do know is a Congress of Salamanders is very funny.
I enjoy the phrase "consortium of octopuses". I can imagine them concenting to work together and then "shaking hands".
Even better: “consortium of octopi”
If any animal deserves a such an impressive word as consortium. I’m glad it’s the octopus.
@@jayshko Octopodes* it's Greek not Latin
What do you call a crow sitting by itself? Attempted murder.
A pair of crows actually. A crow is just a crow (or possibly a manslaughter). Two crows are an attempted murder and three crows or more are a murder. 😁
No one crow innocent.
This brings to mind that old country saying, "see one rook by 'is self, he be a crow; see a flock of crows, they be rooks". Which suggests a murder of crows is an oxymoron (except during the mating season).
A suicide risk perhaps?
Attempted murder - as shown in the video at 12:43
The "on porpoise" was perfect 👌
That reminded me of Norm MacDonald's appearance on Conan O'Brien's show, when he hilariously told the awful joke about "serving a youthful porpoise."
I like those little jokes and puns he sneaks in. But sometimes I wonder if I missed any. I'll try not to overthink it.
Yep, that one almost flew under the radar, he kept a perfectly straight face. Any bloopers?
A nod to Lewis Carroll’s Gryphon and Mock Turtle
For what it's worth, when I lived in Namibia, "crash" was the word that everyone used to describe a group of Rhinos. I've heard it quite often.
As a Zimbabwean, I have too.
That is the formal English term for a group of Rhinos.
Motswana here, same.
For what it's worth, though I'm not from a place with enough to say myself, I heard it used ages ago. Before any of this make-up-your-own got popular
The crash or the term? Haha
I found out that a gaggle of geese is only referenced to them together on the ground. When geese are in flight they are referred collectively as a ‘skein’ 😅 I also like a flamboyance of flamingos.
Yes and on the water, they are called a "raft."
Of course, good reference, and RCS Virginia below, worth remembering.
I first encountered a "parliament of owls" in one of the Narnia books. It's also the title of the chapter, and features a literal wise council of owls that advise the protagonists.
A parliament that gives wise advice AND keeps the rodent population in check? When C.S. Lewis dreamed, he dreamed big!
A fun side fact: I just recently learned it was also a nod to Chaucer's A Parliament of Foules. LOL. I'm 52 and have read and been in love with Lewis and Narnia since childhood. I still read them on occasion and it's funny how certain things in everyday life trigger memory of chapter titles or quotes from one of the books. It's so cool to see you mentioned that chapter because it's one of my very favorites in the series. 🤓🥰
The owl is a prominent feature in the ruling-classes' symbolism. Bohemian Grove has a 30-foot statue of an owl in its grounds.
Could be the origin of The Court of Owls, from Batman comics 🤔
@@klaus_poppe IIRC, that was revealed to be one subset of the Larger [Parliament of Owls] that is basically DC's Illuminati.
Flamboyance of flamingoes and a kaleidoscope of butterflies have always been my favourite.
I like an embarrassment of pandas
How about a graffiti of zebras?
Those are beautiful!
Oh my! I had never heard "kaleidoscope of butterflies"! How delightful!
@@DalokiMauvais It is, rather, isn't it. :D
Some years ago the author of a novel I was reading referred to a group of teen-agers as a “giggle of girls.” Having a teen-age daughter at that time, I found this to be absolutely on point!🌸
A book of collective nouns I read a few years back had "a blush of boys."
Amen!
My Cornish grandfather referred to his four daughters as "a giggle of girls" in the 1940's.
Apparently this is very old, 16th century if not 15th, but was originally "a giggle of boys". Culture changes I guess.
It's actually a bevy of girls
My French wife recently took to describing her collection of poultry in the garden as: 'My fleet of chickens.' I pointed out to her that 'fleet' is used to describe a group of ships, or possibly aircraft. She thought about it for a while and then said: 'I rather like the idea of them being a fleet. And they do fly - a bit.'
In 1974, I was working as a secretary in a high school library. The first Christmas I worked there, the head librarian gifted me a slim book called "An Exaltation of Larks." It was, of course, a book of collective nouns, and utterly fascinating. I have it to this day.
A notable book by James Lipton (known for Actors' Studio) that should have been mentioned in this video even if it wasn't used as source.
A sassafras of vermillion
The effortless use of porpoise in your monologue without even skipping a beat or smiling was 😚👌🏻 perfect. 😆 Thank you for the pun.
And thanks for all the fish!
Came here to say this 👏🏼
Yes his was perfect. I tried to slip it in once in a conversation and received a lot of side-eyed views.
Literally going through the comments to see if anyone else noticed 👏🏽
@@prva9347 Oh, never saw that one before ... well done!
As a fish nerd...(great video as usual! Thank you)
i just wanted to mention that schooling and shoaling are distinctively different. A school is tightly grouped fish moving as one, undualting and pulsing. A shoal is when fish split up and stay near but each scatter in their own patterns and far more loosely.
Just two different survival tactics that evolved for social fish.
I thought a "shoal" was also an area of shallower water near the coast that ships could still travel through. As in the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 "we are shallow on the draft, can't see lose them along the shoal?" Or is the word incorrect? I'm not a nautical person but my first thought upon hearing the word shoal was water depth not fish.
@naomilangevin3944 that is another use of the word also. Good call
@@naomilangevin3944I'm from savannah GA with some time spent in the florida keys and breifly in the gulf of mexico and that's the only way I've ever heard it used.
There could be several schools of fish or fishes( the double plural for multiple kinds of fish that is rarely used outside of biblical quotations or marine biologists but could be used at any fish market) but they were described as swimming or otherwise residing in the shoals or in "that shoal over there" as someone pointed to a distinct area that followed a line. I was never instructed as to what designated the ending of one shoal and the beginning of another but it always seemed intuitive with darkening waters and bigger individual fish species frequenting those areas and far fewer smaller or more numerous species. Like the space between galaxies or a dark region where few galaxies exist or within a galaxy where few star systems exist but which isn't obscured by a dust cloud.
"The shoals" was an area you could explore and was populated by schools and individual marine species.
It was never defined to me, but often used. I suppose it could've been in reference to the loose groupings of fish who occupied those regions, but I remember being warned about getting a water craft stuck in those regions on several occasions or damaging a keel.
A fin keel, was also just called a keel. With fiberglass and inflated or semi ridged hulls which never possessed a real keel from stem to stern as well as the metal bottom and even modern wooden vessels with a shallow keel simply referred to as the hull or bottom of the hull. The only time that the word "keel" was imidiatly followed by the word "fin" was on the caudal peduncle of a fish at the 4H marine center, which the children would imidiatly laugh at when pronounced.
Thai doesn't really do exactly this, but a standard feature of the language is that there are words called classifiers which are required whenever you want to talk about a quantity of something. So for instance, if I wanted to say "there are 5 children here" in Thai it would come out something like "here have children 5 people", where the word people here is the classifier for groups of people. This can lead to some unintended humor for English speakers learning Thai, especially because sometimes the classifier for one type of things can sound the same as a noun with an entirely different meaning. For instance, the word for children sounds the same as the classifier for small round objects. So if you want to ask a Thai man how many children he has, "you have children how many people?", but instead use English grammer, "you have how many children (small round objects)?", he will almost certainly say "two!", probably with a straight face. Then he'll crack up.
A lot of Thai humour is based on word pronunciation. As it is a very tonal language, with various inflections, the same word can be used five different ways depending on the tonal inflection. Farangs (westerners) attempting to speak Thai can be a great sense of amusement to them with a different meaning being said as to what was implied. Very much like a pun.
When smokers were starting to become persona non grata and small groups were seen outside buildings I asked colleagues to come up with a new collective noun for the phenomenon. My favourites were "A cloud of smokers" and "A coughin' (coffin) of smokers".
That's lovely 😂
The "coughin of smokers" is phenomenal! :D
Askegels (ash cones) is the name I use in Dutch. That’s what we call a smoked/burned part of a cigarette or cigar. And ‘kegel’ can mean cone but can also mean a bowling pin. And they’re often smoking at the entrance of a building at the end of an entranceway like a bowling alley.
Coffin is the best, most interesting one.
Depends on what they're smoking, though. If it's marijuana, I'd say it's more "a haze of the dazed".
The 90's band, "Counting Crows" has a great song called "Murder of one" that is about being isolated and alone, and I've always loved the obscurity of the reference.
That title is much more clever than the band’s music, which I had completely forgotten about.
My favorite is "a complaint of Karens", but "a superfluity of nuns" is a close second now! 😂
Actually, a group of Karens is called a Homeowners Association.
How about a sorry of Canadians?
A drunk of Irish!!!
@@andresfontalvo17 That's cute, and harsh.
A tangle of octopi?
An extinction of dinosaurs?
A parliament of idiots?
A stagger of drunks or a vomit of drunks?
A whining of millennials?
A pile up of cars? A rusting of cars where I live.
A grating of cell phones? Their constant ringing, dinging and buzzing quickly start grating on my nerves, maybe because no one ever calls me.
A singling of loners? Only seen at comic conventions or Magic the Gathering tournaments. Maybe a stink of nerds?
One that I heard and had a giggle about was 'an attitude of teenagers'.
I love that you asked a bird-related society about those words, and they answered you seriously. Your channel truly contains a "wonder of videos"!
Shouldn't that be a "vision of videos"?
We used to come up collective nouns for things that didn’t have them as a car trip game. Some of my favourite are ‘a nightmare of teenagers’ and an ‘angst of goths’.
Penny Arcade came up with a blessing of unicorns, I think.
@@jjkrayenhagen I don't think PA came up with it, or at least I haven't found anything citing them as the source.
On a side note: Google tells me a group of unicorns can also be called a glory or a marvel.
@@RelativelyBest I thought that one of their articles said that they came up with it in one of their discussions, but maybe they just mentioned hearing it.
I would argue that it should be 'An Angst of Emo' and 'A Skulk of Goths' :P
Ed Byrne says it a Mood Of Goths and an Isobar of Emos, they being linked by their depression
In the US navy, our Eagle rank insignia for Petty Officers are often called crows (couldn’t tell you why) and when someone is going through a qualification where a bunch of Petty Officers are drilling you, it is called a “Murder board” because you’re surrounded by crows.
Lol, that's interesting, didn't know that.
Funnily enough in the British Army, officers are often referred to as crows as a bit of a pejorative.
When in training we'd give the officer in charge the big, heavy LSW rifle; affectionately called the "crow cannon."
In the British army, it's a pejorative term for an inexperienced solider, or an insult if someone does something stupid. I was told it stands for "combat recruit of war", which sounds cool, but I don't know if that's true.
It looks like a crow on the collar tho😂
Thats why i thought it was called that. I was an FC3 when I was in.
A complaint of Karens.
Awesome
Nice.
Spot on 😂😂😂
😂😂😂
😂
Growing up in England in the 50s, I remember one of my favourite classes was spending a whole week on collective nouns. Our teacher combined grammar with literature, history, and even art to teach us collective nouns. One that I remember from that time, and have never heard it used since is a commonwealth of bees.
Did you use the book "First Aid in English"? It was a splendid schoolbook, which our primary school relied on hugely for such delights as these collective words. I haven't seen a copy of it anywhere in decades.
Sounds like you had a fabulous teacher!
I think it may derive from one of the 18th century British philosophers who wrote an essay about the ideal state being like a beehive with all the bees selflessly devoted to their king, ultimately producing sweetness and light, i.e. honey and beeswax for candles. A commonwealth of bees. Of course, they didn't know that the king bee is actually female, and the other bees are sterile females who cluster around her to feed her and carry off her eggs. I actually read this royalist essay long ago, and was pleased to see the origin of the phrase sweetness and light, although it's usually used ironically now.
@@b.a.erlebacher1139 Very interesting, thanks for that insight!
The word commonwealth reminds me of a group of countries.
On an episode of the television series Inspector Morse, Morse ponders what a group of pathologists would be called, and he concludes it must surely be a _body_ of pathologists.
Perfect
It is.
enjoy the Inspector Morse radioplays
Love Morse! English/grammar lessons and a murder all in one! John Thaw was the best!
why wouldn't that be a cut?
Penguins actually have two collective nouns depending on whether they are on land (a waddle) or swimming (a raft).
You could also have a Miracle of Penguins for when they are in flight. 🤪
@@PLuMUK54 Lol, well done 👏
I've heard waddle before but also a panache of penguins.
@@PLuMUK54penguins fly? Only under water as far as I know.
@@lorraineliggera4229 That's why you would call it a "miracle" ;-)
Love these. Our car share pool did try and come up with collective nouns, especially modern suggestions. An amalgamation of gravel lorries (or dentists though an amalgam is better) was one. We had a giggle of guides and a heap of cubs, a detention of teachers, a toccata of organists, a zoom of motorcyclists, a Nah, nah of traffic police (in pursuit with blues and twos), an annoyance of spam callers etc etc. great fun especially if the collective nouns were appropriate or even inappropriate!
One of my teachers told us this.
According to an old joke, four Oxford dons, each of them expert in a different field, were taking a walk in the city of dreaming spires. When they passed a group of prostitutes, the first exclaimed: “A jam of tarts!” The second, a musicologist: “A flourish of strumpets.” The third, a scholar of nineteenth-century English literature: “An essay of Trollope’s.” The last, a professor of modern English: “An anthology of pros.”
Sound like they were a Misanthrope of Dons.
@@safetybeachlife now, not then.
Oh, very good 😄
and in the US? An angle of hookers?
I have actually wondered about this.
In Swedish the only ones i can think of are:
Flock - most animals.
Stimm - Fish.
And Svärm - Insects.
All CAN be used for people too but would be seen as rather pejorative .
We also use ”Stimma” as a verb for people making a commotion or Stimmig describing such people.
And about sound, we do have Surra ( a buzzing sound ) sometimes used for people and especially talkative groups or individuals.
Well!
Here are my contributions:
* A poop of polititians.
* A sob of singles.
* A snot of celebrities.
* A mayhem of musicians.
* A whatdahellyawant of whiskies.
* An otherness of opinions.
* A dingle of departments.
* A potty of political parties.
* A plummet of airplanes.
A plummet of airplanes, lol
Plummet of Airplanes? Too soon man, too soon.
9/11 Never Forget!
I always thought that it being a murder of crows was somehow tied to them being perceived as an ill omen.
Yeah that was my interpretation aswell.
Maybe they weren't at the time and we just see it like that now but I always thought that was what it was referring to.
So did I
I think that's still the same explanation; crows were perceived as a sign of ill omen because they hang out around dead bodies and make (what are to us) ominous shrieking sounds
I wonder if the word was resurrected by the movie “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock. I have a vague memory of learning the word in association with that movie, but can’t remember if it was ever used in the movie.
@@margaretford1011 Possibly popularized it. That's a Hitchcock I sadly haven't seen yet, I should get on that!
If I were to suggest a couple collective nouns...
Maybe a _Mumble_ of Linguists?
A _Thunder_ of dinosaurs?
How about a _Scribble_ of cartographers?
Always love your content, keep up the amazing work 😁
None of those can surpass "A Confusion of Philosophers". That's my favorite one.
I ran into the "Stoakes-Whibley natural index of supernatural collective nouns" a while back, and it has some interesting entries like: a racket of banshees, a legion of demons, a pleasure of pixies, a majesty of titans, a yard-sale of androids, a percussion of giants, an industry of villains, a snarl of minotaurs, THE BORG, and my favourite a basement of vampires.
Okay, I have to give credit to the late, great Terry Pratchett for this one who gave us the Argument of Witches.
Shortage of Dwarves
Ive heard legion of demons quite often, and honestly, an industry of villains fit well.
A Rattle of Bones.
Also, having grown up in Africa, I think that one would be hard-pressed to find two leopards together, let alone a whole "leap of leopards". This may be another reason that they fell out of use. There is not much use of a collective noun for something that doesn't exist in a collective
An imagination of hermits.
I’d say that lands perfectly between phonetics, exoticism & exaggerated warning
I wonder if it was coined for multiple leopards in a heraldic achievement?
@@jgw5491 A heraldic achievement would be the entirety of all the components a bearer of a coat of arms is entitled to (supporters, motto, helmet, mantling etc). I'm not aware of leopards being displayed anywhere outside of a heraldic charge. To the best of my knowledge, three is the maximum of leopards displayed in any coat of arms (and they usually look more or less the same like a heraldic lion because, frankly, medieval Europeans had no clue what they looked like) and heraldry tries to be precise when describing any given coat of arms. For instance, the famous English three lions where, in heraldry, originally called leopards (which was more of a description for a pose). So, the royal British arms would be Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued Azure -> On a red field, three golden lions walking in the "Dexter" position looking towards the viewers with a blue tongue.
TLDR: Heraldry does not use collective nouns for a charge, it would say "2 leopards" or "3 fish" or "5 geese"
and blue claws. That's the "armed". @@timolynch149
My favourite (whether it is old or modern) is a mischief of rats. As a pet rat owner it amuses me because it is so accurate. If my pet rats start grouping together, they are usually up to something.
As a fan of Time Team, in one episode Tony Robinson asked what the collective noun for archeologists should be and it was determined that it should be an Argument of Archeologists.
When I was growing up, we had about 30 or more barn cats on our farm. These were semi-feral cats that lived in our barns and kept the vermin population under control. My grandfather referred to them as a "TRIBE" of cats. He also pointed out that there were two distinct tribes; one tribe at each of our barns. Also, each tribe had a distinct TOM that ruled each tribe.
I think one of your first lines in this video should be adopted. 'A peculiarity of English' is a very good collective noun for us 😂
"British English" I would assume.
It works for the people or the language, if you'd like to refer to a grouping of words.
A Thunder of Dragons Is a term I have heard before. Very evocative. I would imagine, numerous massive wings beating simultaneously might sound like a thunderstorm.
In the days of IRC, the usenet newsgroup alt.fan.dragons spread there as AFD, and coined "a Dominance of Dragons" (with caps, because dragons are prideful ;)
Stephen King calls it a Bonfire of Dragons.
At my Gaming Table (D&D or GURPS usually) it would deteriorate to a "Hilarity of Dragons" at this point... AND it's probably my fault...
In a "one-shot-turned-campaign", sometime back, I was reaching a low-energy point and someone complained that we hadn't (as a group) faced any dragons... Now, granted, we had several relative noob's in the group and some veterans of our collective had "retired" (basically moved and life got in the way)... so it was a sort of new group, but it had also been quite a while since we had faced dragons, even for the remaining veterans of the game at the Table... SO I started working in an adventure direction toward that...
At some point, memories of my mother crept in, and particularly a conversation (she was a fantasy novel FIEND) where we discussed the actual ramifications of "what if dragons WERE real"... AND hit upon the prospect of just leaving the car wash... and you think bird-sh*t is disheartening!
SO in a town carved right out of the rocks of mountainsides and cliffs, I narrated and described a few free-standing buildings, all of which seemed at least 3 to 5 TIMES as durable as any the Party had seen... There were signs of course, "beware dragons" and the like... Everything outdoors was WAY over-engineered for what you'd expect... AND the livery in town even had a system for self service in the case the shop keep or night watch wasn't immediately present, so customers could let themselves in and park wagons without requisite aid, a place to write and sign notes, and the like... BUT of course, they parked the wagon and horses right outside the bar, and even ignored the warnings from a couple street kids and a woman who could easily tell they "weren't from anywhere around here"...
AND of course, a few minutes in the tavern later, there was a horrendous crash outside, the screaming of horses and a commotion... and the Party came out to see the immense pile of dung slumping in the middle of the remains of their wagon, with the horses bolting down the street... because I couldn't get the idea out of my head... and it was too funny to resist...
SO ever since that little adventure (which they played out and even survived relatively the worse for the wear, but not hopelessly so) the merest mention of dragons at our Table results in a roll of giggles and mutters building up to hilarity as the story is retold to whomever "was noob' enough to look for that kind of trouble" at least at our Table... ;o)
I think that came from the Inheritance Cycle
I've read "an inferno of dragons" though they were at that moment in the story attacking a town with fire.
"A blaze of dragons" would also be a good short hand, perhaps used by members of a more rural community in a fantasy setting.
There was an event I once attended where it was announced that we had a "Hastings" of people there (1,066). I thought that was hilarious, if rather specific. I love English, it's so magnificently weird in so many ways.
That would surely be a misspelling of or possibly pun on hustings
a meeting at which candidates in an election address potential voters.
Originally referring to a governing assembly in Germanic.
@@franohmsford7548 that's cool I did not know that! I think it had more to do with the Battle of Hastings though, which took place in 1066.
@@Branwhin As I said....It may have been a double pun with the number of people there making the change from Hustings to Hastings an easy and obvious malaprop.
I like the fact that when geese are on the ground they are a ‘gaggle’ but when flying in formation they are a ‘skein’.
Yes, and when speaking of a skein of geese, it’s fun to advise that geese assemble into these formations to benefit from the aerodynamic efficiency it provides, and then ask why one side of the skein is longer than the other and pause while the scientific possibilities are considered...the answer? There’s more geese on that side...
@@Dbsabzbzb One of my favorite jokes - and you beat me to it! lol! 🤣
I wonder how it is connected with a skein of wool, wool wound in a loop before it is wound into a ball.
A group of geese floating on water is called a plump.
It's because geese skein up to get high. :D
In high school we read a short story about collective nouns called”…And a Grasp of Millionaires”.
I LOVE the fact many of these where meant as witty or tongue in cheek ideas and actually went to catch on in common language use. Just awesome. An impatience of wives?! I am dying hahaha
Nonsense of husbands!
@@deirdre8744 It's creative and funny.
Clowder and glaring are both actually proper for a group of cats. I ❤ kitties.
I love that you mentioned that the collective noun for a group of whales was changed to "pod on porpoise" and just moved right along. Very droll. Also 'flocc' is what we call the bound together suspended solids in a liquid - as used in water treatment, where a floccing agent is added to make the solids combine and sink or float so they can be removed.
it is a flocculating agent; well known to chemists
Dave Taylor, yes, I heard that and my brain went BOING…! Too early in the morning for puns🤪
I caught that, too. I had to back it up and listen again with CC on. Rob is a punny guy.
I love "a fluffle of bunnies", even if I don't know if it has any linguistic history or if that was just made up recently. It's certainly catching on with bunny owners!
FLUFF ❤
I’ve always been delighted at one of the collective nouns for otters as being a “romp”. Very suitable, particularly for river otters.
Collectives even spill over to things and ideas. A conglomeration of pots and pans or a battery of tests and a hail of bullets coming at you as examples.
I love making them up and one I'm particularly proud of is a cube of sugar daddys 😅
Oddly, I've heard groups of vultures referred to in three ways.
Flying in a group they're called a "kettle," which as far as I know is a general term for birds flying in formation.
Landed and hanging out (on trees, power lines, etc) they're a "committee," and a "wake" when gathered around a corpse.
Kettle is generally used at least in the USA for a group of birds, generally vultures and/or other birds of prey soaring and circling in a thermal.
For what it is worth, we were given a (printed) list of collective animals at school in the late 70s. A ‘crash of rhinos’ was listed there and it was one of the ones that has stuck with me through the years.
I’ve definitely heard/read that many times over the years, myself.
Hi, Have you considered making a video about the different sounds animals make in different languages? In one of my jobs I had co-workers of several different nationalities and somebody went around using people to tell him what kind of sound the different animals make in their native language. It was surprising how different the sounds were. In English the ducks quack but us Hungarians claim that the sound they make is "hap".
Great idea!
Yesss
I agree!
Romanians say that the ducks go 'mac, mac' which curiously is also their word for poppy.
This is a great idea!
I have a longtime favorite, mentioned in this video: an unkindness of ravens. I met the phrase decades ago as the title of a crime novel by an English author!
I can only recall making up one group noun: a giggle of queens for a group of gay men. This is from long ago when I was much younger, and more prone to giggling with my friends. I would strive to use it only in describing men who like, or don't mind, being called queens. :-)
I recommend the late James Lipton's book in collective nouns, "An Exaltation of Larks." It's lovely, and has both traditional and cleverly suggested names that add poetry to our language. Any interest in common nouns in the latter part of the 1900s probably stems from Lipton's delightful book.
I think that's the book I used to have -- my favorite collective noun has always been "an exaltation of larks." 😊
I've actually heard "a business of ferrets" on multiple occasions, so that one is definitely in use.
Likewise for me with "a crash of rhinos"
Whether etymologically sound or created out of thin air, repetition begets commonality begets thus being "real" words. Just ask "normalcy" - appropriated from math(s) by US prez Warren G. Harding as a neologistic synonym for "normality" - or the personally devastating "should of."
Multiple occasions? So you’re saying it’s “business” as usual?
Must be a ferret owner thing - had a friend who owned 2 - said if he had one more he would have a business of ferrets (first time I heard the term) .... we joked for a while on how the two ferrets were already into all his 'business' ...
A mullet is the collective term for a group of weasel fighters
I love collective nouns, they convey such a vivid image of what they describe. An unkindness of ravens, a conspiracy of lemurs or a nest of rumours are my favourite examples that give (mainly) animals their own personality and they evoke strong feelings about the nature of what they describe. Great video!
This explains where "eleven leopards leaping came from." in "The 12 Days of Christmas" song.
Leopards? I never heard that before - or are you joking? There are various versions out there that switch around the last 3 or 4 groups, but the one I learned has "Eleven pipers piping" and "Ten lords a-leaping."
In Spanish we also have some collective nouns for animals, although maybe less than English as far as I know. The main ones are:
"Banco de peces" literally "Bank of fishes"
"Bandada de aves" literally "Band of birds"
"Enjambre de abejas" literally "swarm/crowd of bees"
"Jauría de perros o lobos" literally "dance of dogs/hounds/wolves"
"Piara de cerdos o jabalíes" literally "feet of pigs/wild boars"
In English, we have a "sounder" of hogs, and hunters still use that.
The Italian "muta di cani" sounds incredibly similar to "mute of hounds", and it means the same thing.
@Rijjhb in french too "une meute de chiens"
"Enjambre de abejas" literally "swarm/crowd of bees".
I'm feeling this could easily translate into English as "A jamboree of bees" which sounds quite jolly.
@@copacopa4881 the funny thing is that I have no idea of what "muta" means in that context. Do you happen to know what "meute" means in French?
As a German speaking person, I am very familiar with such collective words. But in German they are used in daily language. From the comments now I understood, that people do not really know them?
By the way: A school of dolphins or dolphinschool (Delfinschule) is a known expression. But we have also fun words like: a hunger of bears (Bärenhunger) a thirst of apes (Affendurst).
For clarity, collective words in English are not those wonderful collections of words all stuck together that make German such a joy. Bärenhunger is NOT a multiplicity of bears and Affendurst is not a multiplicity of apes and as far as I know the Delfinschule is where you learn to swim. Rather a fun posting nonetheless!
Dolphin school or whale school are used in German. But more likely for a group of moms and kids
...or whales as well.
In Donald Duck, years ago, I saw Affenhitze.
Are you not confusing collective nouns (a gaggle of geese/Gänseschar) with compund nouns (Windmill/Windmühle)? As far as I am awarre there are only few collective nouns in German as the same word e.g. Schar is used for a large number fo different animals.
Lovely video! I recall an episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, where the panelists were challenged to make up new collective nouns. The only one I remember from that broadcast is for a collection of heads of school: an absence of principals.
Perfect
Commenting on the general age of members of the Tory Party, on one of the last episodes of "Mock the Week," Ahir Shah called a group of Tories a "haunting."
The Mrs. and I are fond of making up humorous collective nouns. We refer to a group of teenaged young women as a "gossip of girls."
"An Exaltation of Larks," by James Lipton, was first published in 1968. It includes gems such as a "singularity of boars," a "nye of pheasants," a "badling of ducks," a "fall of woodcock" and a "wisp of snipe."
The medieval manuscript has Exalting of Larks.
Are they indeed suggesting "singularity" to denote a multitude of something? So weird! Or is it suggesting that boars are so compact that when they meet, they create a black hole?
I think it's because boors are alone as much as others can help it. 🤣@@mumiemonstret
At the beginning of your first sentence, I think you inadvertently came up with a new one.
"A peculiarity of English". A collection of just about any random grouping of any and all possible English words and phrases, and the explanations of where they all came from. 😂
Or when you get a bunch of Brits together down at the pub: “A Peculiarity of English”
Drinking pints of ‘Old Peculiar’.
Get your camera, Marge! It's a peculiarity of English!
@@skagi4182Is that the same Marge that Ray Stevens sings about? 😅
"It's Me Again Margaret" Ray Stevens (comedy song)
th-cam.com/video/4Wb2nZR6qbE/w-d-xo.html
@@johnnymcauliffe1289 Peculiarities are what I find charming about the British. Cars, comedy...cars that are comedy, lol. Like that one with three wheels that you can pretty much carry around as luggage, lol.
Quirky little streets and lanes. And the ancient history behind it all. It's so different from America, but it's different in an interesting and good way.
I love my country, but too much of America looks like Walmart or McDonald's, and that's not an American look that I, or many American people, actually like.
Which is why we go on vacation...usually inside America admittedly, but looking for a kind of "lost America" that doesn't look like a big billboard sign advertising its modern over-commercialized self.
I've always been quirky myself, so maybe that's part of why I like the Britishness of Great Britain.
To Americans, I think most of us look at, or LIKE to look at Britain like it is some combination of Downton Abbey, James Bond, Harry Potter, King Arthur's court, and every movie or TV show we've ever seen with a butler or someone else prim and proper, in it who keeps everything "ship shape and running in Bristol fashion".
The UK has an attractive image in the US, of being the best combination of quirky and proper, at the same time.
There's an old saying that I like, which probably also applies to it. "Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."
And in almost every book I read as a youngster, my favorite characters were usually the ones who were the most cracked, in the best ways, whether American or British or whomever.
Hi Rob! Thanks for this, I really enjoyed it!
I can solve the mystery of that beer from Berlin, "Berliner Kindl", and why there's a kid in the mug. In the first place the German word for child is "Kind", not "Kindl". The latter is a dialect diminutive. But why the kid? Well, before German parents really tell you where the babies come from - the bees & flower story - they come up with all sorts of stuff. One of them is: "Your daddy found you at the bottom of the beer mug." It's one of the nicer ones, for sure.
Thank you for this interesting explanation!
Berliner is that like a donut 🍩....remember jfk said that he was a berliner and they laughed at him... but they understand what he was trying to say .to be fair to him
@@Rapture-Farms Actually, a "Berliner" is similar to a donut, as for how it's made, just that it doesn't have a hole in the center: instead, it's filled with jam or custard. Typical in carnival - another funny side to it, don't you think?
Some ideas:
Fluffy: An apology of Brits.
Satirical: A grift of politicians.
Morbid: A stabbing of youths.
A courtesy of Canadians?
“embarrassment of pandas” is the killer one for me 😂
As a birder and RSPB member, a murmuration is used to describe a particular flocking behaviour where large numbers of birds flock together in flight, darting about allegedly to confuse potential predators. And Starlings are indeed one of the most common murmurator species. Also waders like knot murmurate. So a murmuration of starlings is in quite common usage in the community. But as to whether this is the original source of the collective noun, or if the collective noun led to the description of behaviour, I cannot say.
In German we use "Schule" for fishes and esp. for dolphins. There is also the word "Baumschule", which is a tree nursery. "Schule" has the same roots as "Schwarm" (swarm).
Very cool video! 🤓
What I find fascinating and puzzling at the same time is the weird similarity English and German have in calling a place where you grow trees a Baumschule/tree nursery and a place where you educate little kids a Kindergarten/kindergarden... Where are the roots of this?
@@Skybutler70 In Baumschule und Pflanzschule bedeutet es den Ort, wo junge Bäume oder Pflanzen zur künftigen Versetzung in Menge gezogen werden. (Adelung-Wörterbuch) Pflanzen großziehen und versetzen - Schule für Kinder = Kinder großziehen und versetzen (von den Bänken der ersten Klasse in die Bänke der zweiten Klasse, da früher in nur einem einzigen Klassenraum unterrichtet wurde und "versetzen" sowohl wörtlich (von einer Bankreihe in die nächste) als auch übertragen (von einer Klasse in die nächste) bedeuetete. Sorry for not explaining in English. If anybody is interested in the topic I may try it. Let me know.
@@Skybutler70
Well, a nursery or school for growing tender young trees seems fairly self-evident, and kindergarten is simply both a borrowed word and a borrowed practice. 19th century German immigrants in America brought kindergartens with them, especially in Wisconsin, where we also still have Turnvereine, although there isn't a lot of gymnastics going on in them anymore. In fact, during our devastating Civil War, my great-great-grandfather's brother, a fairly recent arrival from Trier who, like many Germans in Wisconsin still didn't speak much English, was trained at the Milwaukee Turnverein to assassinate Jefferson Davis, believe it or not. (He was obviously not successful in this, but he did manage to come back alive from this mission, if without one of his arms.) I have a letter he wrote to his cousin in the old country in which he is very passionately urging him to come here to fight the good fight, so appalled that he was by American chattel slavery. But that story is obviously a fish of a very different kettle...
🤓
Alliteration, onomatopoeia and drama! Wonderfully poetic.
I had some trouble learning English, like many French. Unlike many French, I had both of my parents being quite confident with it. That didn't really help me, but still, I knew they knew much more than other kids' parents, in that field.
I was done with school life and starting to learn more and more English at my work, eventually getting comfortable with it. I came across the expression "murder of crows", and found it funny.
I went to my mother, the best of my two parents at English. Understand she's quite fluent in it, although to be fair, she's quite fluent in several languages. It's actually NOT helping to know many languages when you need to know tiny details about a second one.
She laughed so hard at me when I explained her that expression.
"Stop that non-sense, stupid. Never heard of such a thing. You're supposed to be an adult now, stop making things up".
So... yeah... my mother can be quite the "hard lover" kind. It did hurt. Mainly because it hurts growing up, realizing your super parents can be wrong. But also because you know, pride.
Years later after this story, thanks for the video.
I will forward it to my mother. Let's say, just because it's interesting and I just want to share interesting things :p
I doubt she'll remember the story. But the kid inside me will be very pleased.
Because you know. Pride ;-)
So you're a lion? :-P
Well, reading your comment here could give her a hint.
Lol... "Hard lover" is an interesting twist on "tough love". English is crazy.
Les mots collectifs ne sont pas très utiles, mais je pense qu'ils sont fascinants! _"Murder"!?_ o_O Pourquoi!? C'est complètement fou!
@@Tmanaz480 I was going to make the same comment :)
I feel second-hand vindication for you :) I hope she does remember when you tell her ❤
Although I'm unsure of their origin, while in Africa a tour guide indicated that giraffe have two collective nouns. While standing still, they are called a Tower of Giraffe, and while walking as a group they are called a Journey of Giraffe. Whether centuries old or of more recent origin, I think they're beautiful
Many years ago I received a book - "An Exaltation of Larks", a book entirely devoted to collective nouns. Get a copy if you can find one, it's fascinating!
Which emphasizes that it's a game! And has stunning illustrations... Pride of place on my shelf!
It s fascinating!
By James Lipton.
A Murmuration of Starlings has always been my favourite. It's just so onomatopoeic !
Psst...
Onomatopoeia, pronounced ah-nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh, refers to the practice of naming something based on a phonetic (spoken) imitation of a sound associated with it. It can also refer to a single word of this kind: Hiss is an onomatopoeia. Buzz, chirp, and honk are all also examples of onomatopoeia.
"It appears that we have made the change on porpoise (...)" brilliant wordplay!
I genuinely went down in the comments to see who else had noticed (and mentioned it)
it always feels to me that many times especially with the animal related collective nouns the noun emphasizes an attribute that we put onto this specific animal (pride for the lion, murder of crows due to them being often associated with battle fields, parliament of owls because owls are linked to ancient Athens, etc.)
German has some collective nouns, but not nearly as many. Aside from some occupations with some specialised terms, like fishermen or hunters, there are just a handful of words depending on what kind of group it is. For example, a group of predatory animals formed to assist each other in hunting is a Rudel, no matter if it is wolves, dogs, or lions. A Herde is a group of usually herbivorous animals formed to protect each other when eating or travelling, and usually has some kind of leader. Schwarm is often used for birds, fish, or insects, but really all massive gatherings (especially if they seem kinda chaotic and unorganised to us humans) can be called that. For smaller and more organised groups or migration of birds sometimes Rudel (or even military terms like Formation, Staffel, or Zug) gets used to empathise how orderly they fly compared to the chaos of a swarm.
Something i noticed years ago was how we english speakers here in modern times tend to refer to females as some form of avian.
For example, i know we've all heard of the British referring to a lady as a "bird". I've also heard the term "old bird" when referring to an older lady. Here in Australia, i know during highschool a lot of people would refer to someone as a "chick", usually talking about a younger female whether a teen or a little older. You may also hear of pregnant people "nesting", referring to when they start cleaning up the house or rearranging things, i have been told this "nesting" happens fairly close to birth. I remember dad explaining how my mum started "nesting", cleaning the house at 3:30am and he knew that they should head to the hospital and i was almost born in the car. I'm not sure if this is a common one or not. And another one is when someone is feeling "clucky", usually a female who sees a baby and misses or wants one of their own or just feels motherly in that moment? or something along those lines. The term itself has always made sence somehow but to describe it the way i have just doesn't sound correct.
I think there were some others but these are the main ones i remember or hear around enough.
Byrde was a particular female. Being a virgin. The equivalent for a male was Childe
I don't recall where I first heard this one but, in terms of social spiders I've heard of them referred to as "A Citadel of Spiders".
"Gaggle" is the collective for domestic geese; wild geese come in a "skein." The Norse-based word also means "knife" in northern dialects like Scots, and may refer to the knife-like V-shape formed by wild geese in flight.
One of Ruth Rendell's mystery novels is titled AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS.
I do love a 'Flamboyance of Flamingos'. No clue where it comes from, but honestly? I don't care, I just love it!
My favorite involves vultures. When there are a group of vultures eating together it is a wake of vultures. I cannot think of a better word.
I'm a fan of the University of Minnesota (American) Football team and occasionally the annoucer will use "a Murray of Gophers" as a collective noun if several players make a tackle together. As I understand it it comes more from the name of a former coach (Murray Warmath) but I think it's neat.
Go Gophers! Rah rah for ski-u-mah!
Parrots = A Pandemonium
Bears = A Sleuth
Pandas = An embarrassment
Those are a few I’ve heard of and would love to know the roots for!! I’ve always loved the murder or crows, unkindness of ravens, and business of ravens!! The number of puns me and my best friend have made around crows is AMAZING😂
PS: Did a little bit of googling, and apparently a group of Jellyfish is called a SMACK?? I’m gonna need a part 2 with info pleaseee
wow i dont know that im a group of panda
That was cool þank you ..
I always used "a company of parrots."
"A rafter of turkeys" and "a flamboyance of flamingos" are a couple of my favorites.
I'd like to suggest a barcode of magpies. 😉
I think a group of jellyfish should be a sting!
When you give a bunch of ferrets to different people in different locations, you call them a "franchise of ferrets"
YES! Love this topic. Glad you covered it. One of my favourite terms is a rafter of turkeys.
(also, I saw what you did on porpoise there......)
I have actually seen a group of turkeys in the rafters of a barn, makes me think that’s where they get the name from.
When I was a kid, I would go to the supermarket with my mom and coin terms for groups of people we saw, my favorite one (and the only one that stuck around, at least in our family) being a graph of businessmen
My husband once used the phrase a "a flock of nuns" and I completely lost it. He couldn't figure out why I was laughing so hard. Turns out he was likely closer to accuracy than I thought.
Nuns have been compared to penguins, so flock should be appropriate.
I would like to think it's because of the tv serie The flying nun.
6:30 Germans also have the Word "Welpe" for a joung Dog, like in the Book.
We also use the Word "Schule" (School) for Groups of Fish or Whales and other often female leaded Mammals, like Elephants.
I also heared the Word "Pflock" for Sheep. In German, Pflock is a pointed wooden Stake, used in building Fences or killing Vampires.
Mandarin has a special concept for units and you typically don’t say a number without using a unit. For example, you don’t say “one book” as “yi shu” but as “yi ben shu” (one source book). Pens and chalk are both “long things,” which have the unit “zhi” (branch), so one pen is “yi zhi bi” and one chalk is “yi zhi fenbi”. There is a generic unit, “ge” (piece), which you can use for just about anything. These unit words match the English concept of collective nouns, but are more common, shorter words.
There is something similar in the Thai language. The descriptors are called classifiers and there are hundreds of them. They are only used, AFAIK, for inanimate objects or quantities of something, just as we refer to a "pile" of sand rather than a "heap". Some of the classifiers are not used for specific objects but as a collective for attributes, such as round things, shiny things etc., etc.
I know Chinese and Japanese do this as well. I think it's an east Asian "thing," even though east Asian languages belong to a number of different families. Some Native American languages have a similar concept, although they do it through noun classes rather than classifiers, e. g. Hopi has a class for long flexible objects and another class for long rigid objects, etc.
@@bigscarysteve Cool, I did not know that. Now that I think about it, I guess English does the same thing, but not with the variety or perhaps the strictness. Then again, we might have a stack of business cards but a deck of playing cards and if we cheat, we stack the deck. Oh, dear...
@@Brannigan777 English is fascinating ;)
@@bigscarysteve Korean has these "counters" as well. There's one for machines, one for sheet of paper (or similar objects), another for animals, etc.
@@bigscarysteve I asked a Japanese teacher whether a chicken that got run over by a car is still "wa" (for birds and rabbits) or "mai" (for flat things). She laughed and answered that it's still "wa"
I love the term a charm of goldfinches, so lovely to hear them flocking in Autumn.
Thanks Rob! Another one of your videos I'm delighted to see. I do adore the "Art of Venery" Shoals and shoals of fishes!
One of my favourites is Flange of Baboons. Coined in the 1980s comedy show Not the Nine O’clock News in the sketch Gerald the Gorilla. Flange has now become used by some naturalists instead of the traditional Troop.
I thought it was a congress of baboons.
@@thesisypheanjournal1271 congress and troop have been used in the past.
Dear God that is a truly hilarious sketch.
@@supertuscans9512 "Wild? I was livid."
Haha, scrolled down looking for this.
Ruth Randell, we’ll known British crime writer, wrote a book called, “An Unkindness of Ravens”. I’d never heard it, before that book.
Meant Ruth Rendell, but as usual autocorrect had different ideas! 🙃
In 🇦🇺 a murder of crows is & was used a lot. The farmer would attach killed snakes & foxes on fences & the crows would land on them & peck away. It was common last century when people went for a Sunday drive after church.
Yep, I've only heard "an unkindness of ravens" in reference to the book by Ruth Rendell. People where I grew up called a group of ravens "a conspiracy".
I am bilingual in Thai. In that language, virtually every noun has its own collective noun, although a few nouns that are closely related (usually in shape -- such as pencils, pens, and chopsticks) share the same collective noun. Primary school students are routinely drilled in nouns and their associated collective nouns.
I know Chinese and Japanese do this as well. I suspect it may be a more widespread east Asian "thing," even though the languages of east Asia belong to a number of different language families. Some sort of cultural diffusion, perhaps?
The Malay language has these kinds of classifiers too, like "biji" (seed) for small things, "batang" (log) for long stick-like things, "ekor" (tail) for animals, "ketul" (lump) for chunky things, and "buah" (fruit) for... a bunch of different things I suppose?
I won't call that "collective nouns" since those are actually noun classifiers. Though we do have a general classifier for groups of animals: "ฝูง" (fuung). However, being culturally significant animals they are. Eleplants get their own collective classifier: "โขลง" (khlohng).
Your vids are just GREAT, I've been binge watching since yesterday, when I discovered this channel. AMAZING
Great to have you on board!
Also in Italian we have collective nouns, but not so many as in English. We are very "precise" with them: there's "gregge" for ovines (sheep, goats etc.), "mandria" for bovines (cows, buffalos etc.), "sciame" for flying insects and "stormo" for the birds; "branco" for almost all the other animals (canides, felines, whales etc.)...
Fun thing 1: for fish, we use "banco", which is the same word for "desk", specifically the desk we use at... school! The etymology of the Italian and the English term are surely unrelated, though (our "desk" is probably the desk in the market where the fish are sold).
Fun thing 2: you looked puzzled when you mentioned the "mute of hounds", but... it's the same word we use for dogs when they're pulling a sleigh! Yes, a group of dogs is a "branco" if it's free, a "muta" if you put reins on them.
Thank you very much for your videos! :)
Spanish does this too.