Afternoon thunderstorms rolling in. Ghost spent the whole long weekend with Landlady, and now just wants to hang in the Lair. I’m not feeling so hot (still haven’t passed that kidney stone) so I’ve been sitting around reading all day.
And there’s a bunch of ravens flapping around the cliff face visible through the window by my big chair, making lots of noise. And I got to wondering: I know a group of crows is called a “murder,” for reasons surpassing understanding. But what do you call a group of ravens? They normally hang out in pairs, you don’t usually see more than two in a group, so the question never came up before.
Yes, of course there’s a quick answer. I love this Internet thing! Thanks, Mr. Gore! I was looking at an unkindness of ravens. Okay. It doesn’t make any real sense, but it’s apt in its way.
But that raises another question, and while the answer might be at my fingertips I don’t know how to phrase the question. Everybody knows about weird names for groups of animals; you know, a tower of giraffes, a leap of leopards, a pride of lions, yadda yadda. Sure. But who came up with all those dumb names in the first place? How did that get decided? I can’t seem to find the answer.
Google “collective names of animals”. There are plenty of sites, have fun:-)
This is why I always refer to a group of animals (of any type whatsoever) as a ‘Passel’. I find it archaic enough to be distinct, and it annoys the pedants. Because thats my style (although I am known to get extremely pedantic myself, from time to time).
Making up collective nouns is a game I used to play to stay awake on long drives;
e.g a concern of social workers
a circle jerk of mainstream journalists
a tyranny of bureaucrats
an OCD of…
The Hayekians would probably go all “emergent order” on you for the origins of the catalogued collective nouns (but what can’t be explained by appealing to “emergent order”?)
as there might be a hayekian present, I’ll save them the offense of my personal collective noun for their sort.
damn small key boards!
A pomposity of Heyekians?