Things have been getting too serious lately around here so I decided today I was going to have a post that hopefully might make you smile just a little.
I was amused to discover some recent examples of collective nouns, either real or suggested. I thought the ones below were either a writing related or applicable to the genre we write in.
A Kindle of kittens
A Stud of mares
A Knob of pintails (a kind of duck apparently)
An Assembly of toys (we all have our litle secrets in the bedside drawer, don’t we..)
A Clench of sphincters
A Plump of ducks
A Pace of asses (and boy, there are a lot of those about)
A Grind of blackfish
A Head of curlews (more birds)
A Buttload of proctologists
A Convention of tongues
A Muscle of Marines
There was some controversy about the collective noun for cocks – and I mean the rooster like birds that flock around the hens, you fowl minded people.
Some say ‘a Flock of cocks’ others suggest the right word is a ‘Brood’. And in case you really wanted to know, and don’t spend all your time Googling it (as I know you might) apparently it is a ‘Clutch of penes’ (plural for ‘penises’). Others have been suggested but I won’t go into too much detail here.
I found these too, and while I can’t swear they are actually in use, they were fun enough to include
Conjunction of Grammarians
Erudition of Editors
Pan of Reviewers
Pitfall of Fine Print
Shush of Librarians
Squint of Proof-readers (how true is this)
Swarm of Literary Drones
I had a particular fondness for this one and for the rather amusing little anecdote I found online that accompanied it. You can read it here Fesnyng
It’s a Fesnyng of ferrets – apparently this is the real, honest to goodness collective noun for these slinky creatures. I mean, who comes up with these weird names and what the hell were they smoking at the time because I want some.
And one last one I thought was rather clever…
A Fraid of ghosts – just like these cute guys 🙂
