The Friday Fillip

About two years ago there was a contest on Slaw to see who could come up with the best collective noun for, well, a legion, a conspiracy, a bombast, an argument, etc. of lawyers. I thought we might revisit the broader topic of collective nouns this Friday, and as a resource to help you follow along you might want to open another couple of tabs in your browser to these two sites (one, two) that have improbably long lists of collectives.

I’m resisting the temptation to delve into the history and origin of the whole business of collective nouns, as being too… well earnest for a Friday. I’ll just say that I suspect that whatever else they are they’re partly an upshot of the practice of hunting (whether for food or “sport”), which is to say “venery,” to use the old fashioned word (which, thanks to Venus, can also mean the pursuit of sexual activity).

Let’s get the obvious out of the way to begin with: yes, there is apparently a collective term (CT hereinafter) for collective nouns: it’s the sadly unimaginative “collective.” Bah!

On to more abstruse stuff! How’s this: a bike of bees. A bike is a collection of wild bees, whereas domestic bees come in skeps (those round-topped straw huts) or hives, and the term dates back to the 14th century, etymology unknown.

Some beasts have quite a number of CTs, suggesting, I guess, that they were popular targets. Take partridges, for example: our listing sites suggest that you might have, depending, a covey, bevy, bew, clutch, or warren of the little things. But the OED instructs that, while covey is right, bevy properly belongs to quails — and “maidens or ladies… roes… or larks” (1470). There’s that venery venery thing again.

The OED also comments that these terms have “fantastical” origins in many cases, meaning, I suppose, that 13th century blogs held contests to see who could come up with the best CT for… undertakers (unction), librarians (stack), trains (cancellation) or pedlars (malapertness).

An apology of Canadians might be interested in CTs that relate to our emblematic animals: as you might imagine, there’s nothing very entertaining or even clever about a lodge, family or colony of beavers, although the last CT suits the country historically. Slightly more inventive is a sloth of bears (sleuth is just a variation of sloth), though polar bears apparently belong in packs (as in pack ice, perchance?). Meese are merely a herd. Snore. But geese (esp. Branta canadensis) — no, not a poop — may be a flock, a gaggle, a plump (also true, bizarrely, of spear carriers and seals), team, wedge or skein, the last two applying to the birds in flight. We should, therefore, consider replacing the moose on our national coat of arms with a Canada goose beaked and legged, rousant, with spears portees.

That about does it for this latest in a flutter of fillips. It remains only to wish you (collectively, that is) a respite of weekends.