Thursday, August 11, 2005

Distinctive Collectives

English names for groups various creatures are often bizarre. Many of the stranger collective nouns came from the Boke of St. Albans. Most lists don't include a "parliament of rooks" any longer. Lists of collective animal names are available for children and adults. Though, oddly there doesn't seem to be a collective name for humans as a species, numerous names (mostly silly) exist for types of human groups. Dispute does exist in the world of collective nouns. Officially monkeys are grouped in "troops", but most people would agree that the proper term for a group of monkeys is barrel . However debate seems to have been closed on the subject of the proper term for a group of tentacle monsters (NSFW). Of course, you have to know how the proper grammar when using collective nouns. [from MetaFilter.com]

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