By FMT’s Lifestyle Desk
While most of us are content knowing just a handful of collective nouns for animals – namely herd, pack and flock – and casually apply them to practically all congregations of animal, the trio of terms simply isn’t good enough for certain chosen-one species. Far more exotic, highfalutin and highly-esoteric terminology is required to reference, for example, a crowd of hippos at a rock concert; or crows amassing at Apple stores for the launch of the latest iPhone. Take a gander at the following collective nouns for animals, and incorporate them into your vocabulary to avoid embarrassment during your next African watering hole visit.
An exaltation of doves
Exaltation is defined as “mental elevation; a state of mind in which a person possesses elevated thoughts and noble aspirations.” Indeed, if a few doves take flight before us, can we feel anything but elevated at the sight of them?
A parliament of owls
This group name has its origins in the children’s classic “The Chronicles of Narnia” by CS Lewis, and is a reference to Chaucer’s allegorical poem “The Parliament of Fowls” in which all the birds of earth gather together to find a mate. Lewis adapts the title of Chaucer’s poem to describe a council of owls which meets at night to discuss the affairs of Narnia. The international success of Lewis’s books – more than 100 million copies have been sold – has led to the term becoming more widely known than most traditional collective nouns. It is now recognised by grammarians as the “correct” term for a group of owls.
A bloat of hippopotamuses
This is a comparatively recent addition to the collective noun canon, appearing for the first time in print in CE Hare’s 1939 hunting and fishing manual “The Language of Field Sports”. The average male hippo weighs around 3,600 kg, and its body is covered with a layer of subcutaneous fat which helps it float well (as if it is bloated with gas).
A shrewdness of apes
At first glance, it’s hard to believe that this collective noun was in use a full 500 years ago. Today, ‘shrewdness’ means intelligence and, more precisely, astuteness. And though recent studies into the behaviour and brains of apes have revealed startling cognitive abilities, these findings would have shocked medieval naturalists. Instead, our forefathers noted in apes a kind of playful mischievousness, and in their day, ‘shrewdness’ meant wickedness. In a wonderful stroke of luck, the evolution of our language has mirrored the evolution of our scientific understanding, so that a term that made perfect sense in 1486 also makes perfect sense to us.
A murder of crows
While most terms for groups of birds are linked to their song or habitat, this one has its roots in medieval folklore. With their dark feathers and jet-black eyes, crows were regarded by 15th-century peasants as messengers of the devil or witches in disguise. They were suspected of having prophetic powers, and the appearance of a crow on the roof of a house was taken as an omen that someone inside would soon die. There are also accounts of the birds living up to their murderous name by enacting something known as a ‘crow parliament’, during which up to 500 birds are said to gather together before suddenly setting on one of their number and tearing it to pieces.
Based on an article originally published in www.KindMeal.my