1 01'. d
A Lounge Lizard
Walks Into A Bar
H
ow many of you have heard of collective nouns?
No, not like garbage cans! (There is always one
smart aleck out there!)
We have in our language many oddities that help us
to refer to groups of things. Yes, we know of the herd of
elephants, the pad of paper, the crowd of people. But, when it
comes to animals, there is a great diversity of nouns associ-
ated with them.
Yes, I know that many of us will
never encounter any large groups of
these except on visits to the zoo; but
it is fun to know that the words exist.
Many of them are descriptive in their
own right. Others are just fun in being
odd.
Let us start by looking at some of
the more prosaic — that is, ones we all
immediately recognize and can even
use appropriately.
There are the colony of ants, the
Sy Manello
pride
of lions, the brood of chickens,
Editorial
the
flight
of pigeons, the flock of ducks
Assistant
and the school of fish.
One that I found particularly apt was a congress of
baboons. This becomes really evident in an election year,
though why the primate has to suffer by this escapes me.
We know how fast we react when encountering a group of
bees; but did you know that such groups can be identified as
a flight, a grist, a hive or a swarm? No, I cannot find,a dis-
tinction made.
If you have ever heard a lark sing, then you know how apt
the next identifier is: an exultation of larks.
Did you know that a grouping of lizards is known as a
iN CONTENTS
lounge?
Now we
know where
the term "lounge
lizard" came from.
Cats, who are far from my
favorite animals, can be accu-
rately described in a group as a pounce of cats or a
nuisance of cats. Ain't that the truth!
Observing a peacock in a zoo you may easily discern that a
group would be known as an ostentation.
A mischief of mice should come as no surprise.
A murder of crows is particularly dark, and it is easy to
see why it lent itself to the tile of a book of poems, a movie, a
mystery novel, etc.
When it comes to rabbits, we all know their propensity
for multiplying. Perhaps that is why a group of them may be
known as any one of the following: a bury, a colony, a down
(Remember Watership Down?), a drove, a husk, a leash (Try
walking one!), a trace and a trip.
Who could doubt that a group of rhinos would be called a
crash!
Giraffes are tall; they are known in a group as a tower.
Gnats swarm and as a group are known as a cloud. Tigers are
known as an ambush — go figure!
Well, if you should come across a warren of wombats, don't
stir up a nest of hornets; just run! ❑
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