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Collective Nouns

 
 
doglikesparky
11:28 / 11.12.04
Following a conversation I had with a friend recently about collective nouns, it came to out attention that neither of us knew what the collective noun for a group of Bats was.
A quick google later revealed to me that the term is, pleasingly, A cauldron of bats.

I thought this was great and before moving on to other, more productive things I then discovered two more (animal) crackers.

An intrusion of cockroaches and (by far the best) an impausibility of Gnu.

Does anyone have any other realy good ones? Can you beat that?
Maybe just make something up, tell us what collectives you'd like there to be and the rest of us will all start using them in an attempt to get them into common usage.
 
 
modern maenad
11:43 / 11.12.04
these are fab. How about a conundrum of platypuses?
 
 
sleazenation
11:49 / 11.12.04
A wunch of Bankers.

A lie of politicians, an ego of actors, an excess of premier league footballers.
 
 
Jack Fear
11:54 / 11.12.04
Birds all seem to get the best ones, especially an ostentation of peacocks and an exaltation of larks. I like an unkindness of ravens so much I used it in a song lyric.

A clowder of cats. A kindle of kittens. I could go on. I won't.

It's such a beautiful aspect of our language, but it's also inescapably, well, an ostentation. Prettyentious.
 
 
Ganesh
16:09 / 11.12.04
An incompetence of doctors, a flutter of poofs, a grim of dykes. A cake of bisexuals?
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
16:39 / 11.12.04
A gathering of collective nouns
 
 
iamus
18:23 / 11.12.04
A clutch of wankers.

(or perhaps a shower?)
 
 
lekvar
18:29 / 11.12.04
A keg of fratboys.
 
 
lekvar
18:30 / 11.12.04
A fistfull of wankers.
 
 
Mazarine
20:49 / 11.12.04
A blather of Barbelithers.
 
 
Sekhmet
13:03 / 15.12.04
James Lipton has a book of these - An Exaltation of Larks. Has collective nouns for various types of people as well as animals.

Fun!

(There are also a couple of novels by the same title, apparently...)
 
 
grant
19:46 / 15.12.04
A shout of evangelists.
 
 
Saint Keggers
22:50 / 15.12.04
A flink of cows.
 
 
Sean the frumious Bandersnatch
23:05 / 15.12.04
A lick of volcanoes
A pity of yen
A mouthful of dollars
A simile of writers
An assload of bass
 
 
Jub
13:27 / 16.12.04
An annoyance of mobile phones.
 
  
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