How about "a parse of grammarians"?
Dr. Seth Katz
Assistant Professor | Faculty Advisor
Department of English | Bradley University Hillel
Bradley University |
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Spruiell, William C
Sent: Wed 2/28/2007 3:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Groups(Babies, Males, Females) of Animales Types
This thread has reminded me that we also need terms for collections of language specialists. I therefore (and herewith) propose the following:
A schism of grammarians
A gabble of linguists
-- Bill Spruiell
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 1:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Groups(Babies, Males, Females) of Animales Types
I was going to comment on this, but I went to the website Jane kindly provide a link for, and found that Macklin Smith, at UofMich, who is much better qualified on this than I am, said what I had in mind, but did so rather better. Here's the relevant section of his comments:
But most are coinages of a rather fanciful,
witty, and often literary sort; and aren't particularly old in the
long scheme of things. "A murder of crows," for example, is neither
common parlance nor old; nor is "an exaltation of larks" or "a
murmuration of starlings"--both of which have all the marks of
18th-c. salon wit (though they could date from Renaissance courtly
ostentation as well). If we consider lists like these, we see some
relatively authentic (i.e., part of the common language) words,
but we mostly see poeticisms. Syntactically, a lot of these
simply take a verb and wrench it into a nonce noun ("a paddling
of ducks")--I mean, no one except a would-be landed gentryperson
would speak like this! More legitimately part of the common
language are usages like "a brood of hens" (common, ref. to
husbandry) and "a rafter of turkeys" (less common, but ditto);
and some based on older metaphors ("a skein of geese").
When he suggests that these collectives sound like "18th c. salon wit" he's right. This was a popular word game in the 18th and 19th cc. among educated and upperclass young people, to see who could come up with the cleverest collective.
Herb
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Saral
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 1:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Groups(Babies, Males, Females) of Animales Types
It appears to be a rafter of turkeys.
See:
http://www.bcpl.net/~tross/gnlist.html
Jane Saral
On 2/28/07, Chris Redding <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
We live in a semi-rural patch in the city where animals assemble for
food. Notable among the visitors are the turkeys. They have become a part
of our lives. It is all the more reason that we should use the right
language to describe them. For example, we don't know the name of a
collection of turkeys. The dictionary doesn't help. Also, what are the
names of the males and females and babies? But, I really am talking about
this question in general. Is there a word to describe this word
specialization among animal types? Also, is there a book to go to that ha
s
compiled this information already? Thank you.
Chris Redding
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