Crazy collective nouns & where they came from

🥚 A gaggle of geese
📊 A business of ferrets
🎓 A school of fish
🔪 A murder of crows
🦊 A skulk of foxes
⏱ An impatience of wives (seriously)

Where on earth did we get all of these strange words for groups of things? Find out in this latest RobWords, where we do some of our own linguistic archaeology.

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[kylestillwell]

As a ferret owner, can confirm most ferret owners DO refer to a group of ferrets as a business. Even if it's just 2 (in which case they usually call themselves a “small business owner” as a joke)

[michaelturner]

I still remember in the adult animated show with anthropomorphic animals Bojack Horseman, one character at a formal party is taking to a ferret alone and ends the chat with "I'll let you get back to your business." as the character rejoins other ferrets and I smiled much

[timbeard]

What do you call a crow sitting by itself? Attempted murder.

[BigJoeChrisLewis]

My French wife recently took to describing her collection of poultry in the garden as: 'My fleet of chickens.' I pointed out to her that 'fleet' is used to describe a group of ships, or possibly aircraft. She thought about it for a while and then said: 'I rather like the idea of them being a fleet. And they do fly - a bit.'

[shernandez]

My son is fascinated by these words and likes to invent his own. We live in an area with lots of seniors, who seem to just randomly bunch up in groups, impeding the movement of everyone else. So he calls them a "clot of seniors". After recently being around some teenage girls, he's calling them a "giggle of girls", which I think is has a nice similarity to gaggle of women.

[xxweirdofromspacexx]

My favorite group is that of ravens, which can also be called a “conspiracy”, so one time when my mom learned this, she told us, than made a meme, it was a picture of a lot of ravens, with the caption: “IT’S A CONSPIRACY”, very few people got it.

I now also love “an oversubscription of YouTubers”

[simongee]

When I was in the hotel industry, some of us made up some appropriate 'trade' collectives for fun. We had a decision of managers, a booking of receptionists, a recipe of cooks, a service of waiters, a round of barmen, a cleanse of housekeepers and so on. 😅

[GregoryBriggs-uy]

I think you coined a new one at 0:53 “ A Peculiarity of English ”

[aaronsakulich]

For what it's worth, when I lived in Namibia, "crash" was the word that everyone used to describe a group of Rhinos. I've heard it quite often.

[cerberaodollam]

The "on porpoise" was perfect 👌

[stevej]

When smokers were starting to become persona non grata and small groups were seen outside buildings I asked colleagues to come up with a new collective noun for the phenomenon. My favourites were "A cloud of smokers" and "A coughin' (coffin) of smokers".

[hkpew]

Thai doesn't really do exactly this, but a standard feature of the language is that there are words called classifiers which are required whenever you want to talk about a quantity of something. So for instance, if I wanted to say "there are 5 children here" in Thai it would come out something like "here have children 5 people", where the word people here is the classifier for groups of people. This can lead to some unintended humor for English speakers learning Thai, especially because sometimes the classifier for one type of things can sound the same as a noun with an entirely different meaning. For instance, the word for children sounds the same as the classifier for small round objects. So if you want to ask a Thai man how many children he has, "you have children how many people?", but instead use English grammer, "you have how many children (small round objects)?", he will almost certainly say "two!", probably with a straight face. Then he'll crack up.

[josephsolowyk]

Flamboyance of flamingoes and a kaleidoscope of butterflies have always been my favourite.

[jamesdominguez]

I first encountered a "parliament of owls" in one of the Narnia books. It's also the title of the chapter, and features a literal wise council of owls that advise the protagonists.

[lizardog]

In 1974, I was working as a secretary in a high school library. The first Christmas I worked there, the head librarian gifted me a slim book called "An Exaltation of Larks." It was, of course, a book of collective nouns, and utterly fascinating. I have it to this day.

[markkettlewell]

I found out that a gaggle of geese is only referenced to them together on the ground. When geese are in flight they are referred collectively as a ‘skein’ 😅 I also like a flamboyance of flamingos.

[deborahmatatall]

Some years ago the author of a novel I was reading referred to a group of teen-agers as a “giggle of girls.” Having a teen-age daughter at that time, I found this to be absolutely on point!🌸

[Fishtory]

As a fish nerd...(great video as usual! Thank you)
i just wanted to mention that schooling and shoaling are distinctively different. A school is tightly grouped fish moving as one, undualting and pulsing. A shoal is when fish split up and stay near but each scatter in their own patterns and far more loosely.
Just two different survival tactics that evolved for social fish.

[viriss]

An absence of waiters is still one of my favorites

[Angel-nbek]

I enjoy the phrase "consortium of octopuses". I can imagine them concenting to work together and then "shaking hands".