hi all,
This site should give you a good idea of how many eagles can occur in one area.
http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle1.html
I guess 3,000 - 4,000 would warrant a collective noun.
Collective nouns are indeed in old English usage and have been adapted the
world over via the wonderful language of English, i.e US people probably coined
the Kettle of hawks as they see that effect more than British people.
aerie or eyrie means "flat" or "a platform", hence the nest. It is nothing to
do with the young other than coincidental.
I have lots of friends who love collective nouns and indeed they are great fun
and useful in the way we communicate with each other, hence the interest
already here with a flurry of e-mails;-)
>From earlier today:
One of the best pages on the web is here:
http://www.ojohaven.com/collectives/
I warn you though it can take hours to get off this page:-)
Best
Alan
On 31/08/2010, at 10:48 , Peter Shute wrote:
Does anyone really use collective nouns for any useful purpose? According to
Wikipedia (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun#Terms_of_venery_.28words_for_groups_of_animals.29)
they date from the 15th century and "were used by gentlemen to distinguish
themselves from yeomen and others". There are a few that are in common enough
use to warrant everyone using them, e.g. a pride of lions, or more locally, a
mob of emus, but for most of the rest, I'd bet that if you have to look up
which word to use then hardly anyone else is going to know the word either, so
you're going to look pretentious for using it outside of poetry, or for fun.
There's a list of collective nouns for birds here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_for_birds
There aren't many there that wouldn't raise eybrows if you used them. Some of
them might be in more common use in scientific circles, I wouldn't know. I
suspect some might be in use in falconry, but none are listed there for eagles,
maybe because the loose gatherings they apparently occasionally form don't
really count as a group, they just happen to be in the same area, although I'm
happy to be corrected about that, I've never seen more than 2 or 3.
Peter Shute
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