Hello everyone,
A recurring computer problem caused me to lose internet access. Previously, I've called in expensive technicians (twice), had my son in Perth talk me through the repair process by phone (twice). This time I tried to fix it myself, and got email back but lost all previous email records. Now I've recovered past records up to last Sunday's automatic backup, but messages from the last week had to be removed to make way for the recovered messages. Hence the delay in my reporting on avian collective nouns.
I¹ve got myself in a bind over this one. I asked for avian collective nouns, in use or suggested, and promised to compile a list. Many kind people have pointed me towards lists that already exist ? and are VERY LONG! Too long for this mailing-list. But I will report on suggested collective nouns and some other matters, so
WARNING: This is the first of several reports with the subject shown as "Collective Nouns - Part ?" with a number. If you are not interested, hit the delete button when you see this heading.
Several people have advised me of relevant Internet sites. I have yet to learn to use the net (apart from email) and I haven¹t tried to look at them. I will list them in Part 2 so others may visit if interested.
Some replies have suggested only one or a few nouns and I¹ll mention these in this report. Others have provided extensive lists of suggestions for Australian birds. I¹ll save them for later.
I¹m unsure what to do about the lengthy advices I¹ve received concerning established collective nouns. Given that there are published books of them, there seems little point in my trying to list some of them now, except perhaps for some valuable advice I received on certain ones which are regarded as either definitely current or definitely obsolete.
The book most frequently mentioned is An Exhaltation of Larks by James Lipton. Tom Clouston, Canberra bookseller, helpful as always, kindly ascertained for me that Penguin expect to have a new edition/printing available in January.
Crows
A cawrus of crows at the end of our street got me thinking about collective nouns, and I found that the correct term is ?a murder of crows¹ (as distinct from an unkindness of ravens). Are these names really valid? I¹ll come to that later, courtesy of Reg Clark quoting Terry Ross. However Laurie Knight, while agreeing with my cawrus, points out that there are two phases: crows circling around like a loose vortex are a cawroboree, and when sitting in their ?house, a cawcus. Noting that some twitchers and all taxonomists are racist, Laurie adds that the crows on his side of the hill are definitely cawcasian.
So we have:
Crows murder (established noun)
Crows cawrus, cawroboree, cawcus (suggested)
and notwithstanding plumage colour, some crows (it is suggested) are cawcasian.
Friarbirds
In suggesting that perhaps a ?noise¹ of Friar-birds was too obvious, I omitted to mention that I love their cheerful voices and can¹t hear too many of them. Thus the suggestion of Colin Clarke (South Carolina) of a surplice of Friarbirds, clever though it is, doesn¹t really appeal to me. I even find our Tromsø friend Wim Vader¹s babel of friarbirds to have a slightly undesirable connotation, though I accept his rationale:
"When listening to a flock up in the trees," Wim writes (having spent ¹93 in Oz), "I always had the impression that they are all conversing in unknown languages, shouting at each other, miffed because they are not immediately understood."
Bill Rankin offers monastery, and Harvey Perkins suggests a fracas while Carol Probets comes up with a frenzy of friarbirds.
Alphabetically then, we have suggested:
for Friarbirds babel, fracas, frenzy, monastery, noise, surplice
none of which really grab me for my feathered friends, so I¹ll suggest another: a happiness of friarbirds.
Brolgas
Being a time for reconciliation how about a corroboree of Brolgas," writes Jon Wren, "only male birds allowed to dance though."
Stints
"A shimmy of Stints reflecting the way they shimmer and shift as one in flight" - a nice one from from Joy Tansey.
Tickers
Alan Control (New York) offers a tock of tickers and a spasm of twitchers, with which excellent suggestion, I¹ll end Part 1.
Syd Curtis in Hawthorne, Queensland.
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