favorite animal collective names (not the band, the actual grouping of animals)

even if you don't vote let's discuss how AWESOME some of these names are

an "implausibility of gnus!!"

a mutation of thrushes?

don't fuck with my wisdom of wombats yo

A PANDEMONIUM OF PARTRIDGES

no lie: my room in the lab collectively refers to itself as "the smack of jellyfish"

there's no way to vote, these are all way too awesome

an escargatoire of snails

(I personally have always been partial to "a conspiracy of ravens", which, wtf, is not on here!)

I had to go with the obvious and classic "unkindness of ravens" (which still sounds like the title of an erotic thriller b-movie as written by Milan Kundera).

some of these are seriously mindfuckingly beautiful (an exaltation of larks!)

i maybe should've just made this bird names but whatevs

i feel AN INTRIGUE OF KITTENS should not go unremarked upon either

I don't even know what a roebuck is, much less a bevy of them. Where did this list come from?

i delight in life and everything but i haven't thought these were neat since i was 19 :/

haha i'm STILL plotzing over some of these

(i'm 22)

kenan: first google result for "animal group names"

A cynicism of Rrrobyns.

they're too lol aren't u clever meh

(i'm mean)
(only a bit of the time)

xpost
oh u r clever
(lol)

I am 19! I hope I don't lose my sense of childlike wonder any time soon

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i191/fluxion23/SEAL_HAREM.jpg

roebuck

http://www.hampshirecam.co.uk/ws06/roebuck.jpg

I might have to vote for (and/or write a book entitled) "Business of Ferrets."

"Murder of crows" is a popular favorite but I'm finding that I prefer "parcel of crows."

I am a fan of a murmuration of starlings, and a wisdom of wombats, but on the whole, I am very annoyed at English for this gross waste of words. Seriously, do we need all of these words? Could we not pick one word? It's so FLOWERY. Crap like this just makes our language tougher for people to learn (okay, not these in SPECIFIC, it's not like "i can't say bunch of quail?! I have to say bevy?! I QUIT LEARNING ENGLISH" or anything, but there are an assload of extra, useless words in English)!

I voted murmuration, but my heart votes for the unlisted "All tied for last because they're so stupid."

yeah, go learn Chinese, smart guy

It is so totally not useless to shade animals with our opinions about them! Speciesist, maybe, but "unkindness of ravens" versus "shrewdness of chimpanzees" passes on Urgent & Key cultural information. We just happen not to care anymore, because animals have ceased to exist.

I am a fan of a murmuration of starlings, and a wisdom of wombats, but on the whole, I am very annoyed at English for this gross waste of words. Seriously, do we need all of these words? Could we not pick one word? It's so FLOWERY. Crap like this just makes our language tougher for people to learn (okay, not these in SPECIFIC, it's not like "i can't say bunch of quail?! I have to say bevy?! I QUIT LEARNING ENGLISH" or anything, but there are an assload of extra, useless words in English)!

I voted murmuration, but my heart votes for the unlisted "All tied for last because they're so stupid."

-- Will M., Wednesday, May 30, 2007 6:45 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

No, YOU'RE stupid, stupid head

P.S. I assume lots of these develop as florid metaphors, of course -- "that's a lot of ill-boding crows, musta been a MURDER around here" -- so maybe you should reclaim that aspect and be like "eh, that's like a manslaughter of crows at most."

A near-fatal wounding of crows

(Also I am totally skeptical of lots of these -- a "lounge" of lizards WTF??)

New terms for smallish groups of animals:

a settlement of ants
a National Guard of caterpillars
a bit of rubbish of kittens
a sulk of chickens
a futon of clams
a solo act of coyotes
an ensemble group of crabs
an aggravated assault of crows
a get-together of jays
an annoyance of locusts
etc.

'A futon of clams'!!!

a "lounge" of lizards WTF??

makes sense, tho... hot rock, sun, all day, only have to eat once a week, etc.

I believe a beard of clams is much better

oh, xpost: I find it weird that a bunch of locusts are known as a "plague." Biblical history aside, you have to call a big grouping of them a "plague"? Mind you, I don't know much about locusts at all, but I guess in large numbers they would plague (vb) you. I was unaware that all these words (like "Richness" or "Trip") could be used as collective nouns.

i have a childlike sense of wonder! also a childlike sense of yeah this is not for me and i am going to go climb that tree where is this barbie's head?? oh it is in the lego box
xposts
nabisco otm lolz

"murmuration of starlings," according to OED, was used in an auden poem

in fact i suspect most of these ARE literary in origin, hence the floridness (like, whoever put it together just googled random animals and anything that was preceded by some sort of organizational grouping made it to this list)

i'm totally cool with how la-di-da and foofy a lot of these sound but it's not like i would yell at someone for not knowing that it's a BELLOWING of bullfinches and not just like, a flock

We really should be exercising our own literary skills and deploying our own animal-group metaphors in each instance: your apartment is home to a "grossness" of cockroaches, the park benches are approached by a "charity" of squirrels, the dog runs of downtown New York are infested by a "Perez Hilton reader's wet dream" of Brussels Gryphons.

I am a fan of a murmuration of starlings, and a wisdom of wombats, but on the whole, I am very annoyed at English for this gross waste of words. Seriously, do we need all of these words? Could we not pick one word? It's so FLOWERY. Crap like this just makes our language tougher for people to learn (okay, not these in SPECIFIC, it's not like "i can't say bunch of quail?! I have to say bevy?! I QUIT LEARNING ENGLISH" or anything, but there are an assload of extra, useless words in English)!

That's silly. We need more specific words, not less.

Somebody was asking me the other day what the word is for helping somebody without being aware of it. Does such a word exist? We couldn't think of anything that really nailed the concept.

More words!

The noisy children on my evening bus may soon be known as a "He-was-such-a-nice-quiet-guy-nobody-saw-it-coming" of children.

a heist of raccoons
a half-empty orange soda can of bees

xpost -- we really should be doing these for people, too:

a sorority of blondes
a summit of cab drivers
a Verizonplan of commuters
a dive of hipsters
a blowjob of undergrads

WHOA WHOA... don't go appropriating the word "blowjob" to your own frivolous purposes. It's too useful.

I was gonna say "a facebook of undergrads," but that one's been taken.

a blankness of architects
a commentsbox of Park Slopers

a heartbreak of Cubs fans

(spotted on the train just this afternoon)

I think beard of clams is my favorite

These are all amazing, but the gnus win. When/by whom were these all standardised, anyway?

The even money is on otters, because this is ILX and they are otters.

OK, a fesnying of ferrets, c'mon, that's the greatest completely made-up thing ever!

I suggest a misdemeanor of grackles.

because it's a misdemeanor to stomp on their hateful little heads?

That's silly. We need more specific words, not less.

Somebody was asking me the other day what the word is for helping somebody without being aware of it. Does such a word exist? We couldn't think of anything that really nailed the concept.

More words!

Okay, fair-- but for useful things. Let's take the word "sedge," which apparently is for a group of bitterns, and make that your unaware-help-word.

i went with starlings myself even tho they don't really "murmur" do they

I love a sounder of pigs. The sounder vote will be split here because it's divided into boars and swine.

I had to vote for the Array of Hedgehogs, but would prefer to call it a "Huffle of Hedgehogs."

Thank you.

Hmmmmm ... how about a Sleep of Sloths?

Or a Leap of Lemmings?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I can't help but love the simple "string of ponies." Also, "intrusion of cockroaches" is perfect.

automatic thread bump is killing me

still not a fan of this cleverass construct

MUR DER

A taco of koalas?

I can't decide, but I'm quite partial to a flange of baboons.

Most of these names are spurious, in that they were never in general or folk use, but rather were ginned up by so-called word-mavens as an excercise in twee. I voted for whales, btw.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

so no votes for intrigue of kittens, huh