heard of a herd

[heryngmongere]

I am working on a new environmental education song which is about some of the terms used to describe groups of animals.  It is called 'Have you ever heard of a herd

Comments

[zihuatanejo]

James Lipton (an ever-more-amazing man) wrote a book just about collective nouns:
An Exaltation of Larks

Of course, my favorite, not appearing in that book, is "A Meeting of Kittyhawks"

I need to get you the Gododdin book back, too!

[syrjustus]

It's a very fun game to come up with new ones as well,

What do you call a group of street walkers?

A flourish of strumpets?

And of course a swagger of knights.

-J

[donal_mac_r]

And while on the subject, let us not forget "a parliament of owls."

But I would make a point about "a crash of rhinoceri."

That plural does not fit. Pluralizing by changing the last couple of letters to an "i" fits only in the case of Latin-based words, most of which end in "-us".

Rhinoceros is a Greek-based word (meaning "nose horn") and so should be pluralized by adding "-es."

So the plural of rhinoceros is rhinoceroses.

Actually, I have come to the school of thought that advocates Anglicizing the plurals of words commonly used in English even though they may be Latin or Greek in construction.

So I would pluralize forum as forums rather than fora, and penis as penises rather than penes.

[heryngmongere]

you cunning linguist you!
your opinion is needed . . .

would a group of detestable people who park in handicapped spaces (when not handicapped) and who drive slow in the passing lane then be called ani or anuses?

[wizros]

a sphincter of ani, to be precise!