Monday, May 11, 2009

Plurals

As in more than one.

A flock, a gaggle, a skulk, an exaltation.

A muster, a drove, a brood, a covey.

A pod, a pride, a murder, a school.

A skein a shrewdness, a sloth, a sord.

Multiple finished objects. How astonishing. I won't actually get them out the door today. They're still damp. But with the help of UPS Next Day Air I should make the May 15 deadline.

For the linguistically oriented types, the collective nouns listed above apply, in order, to birds, geese, foxes (or vermin or thieves and which I will, from this moment forward, use to refer to hand-knit socks), larks; peacocks, cattle on the move, young birds, quail (or grouse or partridges); whales, lions, crows, fish; geese again, apes, bears, mallards. (Then there's a sounder of boar, a wisp of snipe, a kindle of kittens, a cete of badger, a nide of partridge. I love English.)

1 comment:

Diane H said...

Clowder, cludder, clutter, kendle or kindle of cats