Hi all,
Oh the ignorance of some people! Meaning me. Well now I know that the subject of collective nouns has been well canvassed before ... and that there are good reference books for them.
My thanks to all (too numerous to thank individually) who have put me right. Eric Jeffry of Falls Church VA USA was the first whose reply my computer shows, so I'll quote him:
"There are a million of them (give or take about 990,000). Two good
references are An Exhaltation of Larks by James Lipton, and A Crash of
Rhinoceroses by Rex Collings."
And as a tribute to his regular and consistently interesting descriptions from a land beyond the experience of many of us antipodean birders, I'll also quote Wim Vader:
"How about a Babel of Friar-birds. When listening to a flock up in the
trees, I always had the impression that they are all conversing in unknown
languages, shouting at each other, miffed because they are not immediately
understood (I spent 1993 in OZ).
You will get very many replies, I predict. We have had outbreaks of 'collective naming'
before on the birdlists, and Birding-aus seems particularly full of wags.
All the best from a now exceedingly rainy Tromsø."
Wim's prediction has already been fulfilled - within 24 hours I've had many replies and no doubt there are many more awaiting my next opening of my mailbox.
I will have to rethink my offer to make a comprehensive list and post it on birding-aus: (a) because books have been published I may be infringing copyright and anyway the need is less; and (b) it is apparent that the size of the list would exceed the sensible limits placed on messages to birding-aus.
I wonder about a separate list of apparently already existing collective nouns applying to birds native Australia but foresee difficulties in that as well. I take it that "exhaltation" is the word for larks. So would I include that because we have bush-larks and magpie-larks? I'll have to think a bit more about that.
I will try to compile a list (report?) for the words dreamed up for Australian birds. Already there have been some beauts!
This is proving to be an interesting exercise, and I'll mention just two other contributions at this stage - from regular b-a contributors. John Gamblin reckons Prime Minister Howard's appearance reminds him of an owl, and with his colleagues he forms a Parliament, so how about a parliament of owls? Corol Probets has provided a couple of lengthy lists of existing collective nouns ... and, bless me, what's the word for owls? Yes, a parliament of owls. Well done John.
I look forward to more suggested collectives for Australian birds - especially from the 'wags'. Thanks.
Syd
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