MetaChat - collective nouns revis(it)ed?

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13 July 2007

collective nouns revis(it)ed? →[More:]
a harras of horses?!

anyhow...

pondering my earlier reference in Pips' thread to invasions of hexapedal hordes. while i was working on something else entirely and chatting on the web with my mom, it occurred to me that the CORRECT 'venary' (woo, learnt me a new word tonight, thatsa collective noun for animals, yo) for flies would be thusly:

a clusterfuck of flies. rather than a 'swarm' (meh) or a 'business' (too... businesslike.) flies being the shifty little bastards that they are, i can't picture them in ties. however, the term 'clusterfuck' nicely sums up how i view the subject.

sadly the world rarely works the way i'd like it to. c'est la vie.

so, fine bunnies, what collective nouns would you like to see revis(it)ed?

post by: lonefrontranger at: 00:12 | 9 comments

A fart of skunks.

posted by arse_hat 13 July | 00:14

nice one arsey, i like it. we had a skunk wander thru the yard a few days ago and it left my sinuses stinging for hours.

would help if i could freaking spell wouldn't it? that's venery. with 2 ees.

oh and a fun site for all.

posted by lonefrontranger 13 July | 00:19

lfr, the neighbourhood skunk comes by about every second night about the time I go out to sit in the back. I smack my feet a couple of times and he looks indignant and we both co-exist.

posted by arse_hat 13 July | 00:23

I always liked Mark Twain's phrase "a passel of sapheads" (from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn") to describe an admiring crowd. In fact, I just like the word "passel." It's under used, and needs a friend, and so I trot it out in conversation occasionally, just to keep it from seizing up in literary dis-use and conceptual rust.

posted by paulsc 13 July | 00:44

paul, Larry McMurtry uses passel quite often in his books.

posted by arse_hat 13 July | 00:53

A stink of turds.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 July | 08:04

a mess of squash
a slick of playboys

posted by auntbunny 13 July | 08:38

a holler of online message board posters
a whuffle of bunnies (or better, "bunny-rabbits")

posted by mdonley 13 July | 12:06

A body of coroners.

posted by urbanwhaleshark 13 July | 15:21

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