Did you see that murder?

A good friend emailed me recently after pondering how groups of animals acquired their names. He mentioned these examples: warren of rabbits, gam of whales, school of fish.

These words that name groups of people, animals or other things are called collective nouns. Here are a few for animal clusters:

A murder of crows

A cete of badgers

A leash of foxes

An unkindness of ravens

A business of ferrets

A cohort of zebras

A mob of kangaroos

A gaggle of geese, for geese not flying. A group of geese in flight is a skein.

Some of them are pretty cool.

A group of 15th-century English hunters conspired to give various creatures their collective names. Maybe categorizing things is something humans can't help doing.

My guess is that a few bottles of alcohol aided the hunters' creativity. But the gentlemen hunters wanted to stand out in society, and they believed that knowing these "terms of venery" was one way to do so.

Venery is the practice of hunting, and the word has the same root as "venison," or deer meat.

One book that taught such things was The Book of St. Albans, printed in 1486. A second was Caxton's Courtesy Book, published five years later. Johannes Gutenberg had invented his newfangled printing press in about 1439, so these were early books.

The friend Fred, who had called, had been thinking a lot about this and suggested that we apply some collective nouns to people with the same names. His ideas: a folly of Freds, a mess of Mikes, a brood of Bobs.

I guess Fred likes alliteration, using words with the same first sound near each other.

I felt funny about grouping people in this way. I imagined a party where people with the same names were forced to congregate with only each other.

"Sophies? All the Sophies, get over by the sofa. Cheries, I want you standing around the chifforobe. Davids, hang out at the dining room table."

It could turn into a nightmare, Nelly.

Instead, I tried to find names for people in particular professions.

Naturally, after I had spent hours working on these, I found a book online called An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton. (He also happens to be the host of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio.) And he had done the same thing in part of the book. Curses!

Nonetheless, I spent the time, so here you go:

A sway of advertising people

A compact of garbage collectors

A stitch of surgeons

A plank of carpenters

A query of journalists

A shock of electricians

A clarity of opticians

A cashmere of software developers

A spinneret of web developers

A vapor of respiratory therapists

A mash of potato farmers

A churn of public relations agents

A rattle of exterminators

A sting of compliance officers

A blur of daycare operators

A croup of pediatricians

A rush of plumbers

A juggernaut of telemarketers

Email me if you have your own examples.

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Here's a quick reminder on when possessive plurals don't need apostrophes. These are some tricky phrases: "boys basketball team," "homeowners insurance" and "teachers college."

In those examples, the plural words are descriptive. The basketball team is for boys. The insurance is for homeowners. The college is for teachers. This is why we don't need apostrophes here. The team doesn't belong to the boys.

Also, you'd say, "writers strike," because it's a strike by writers. And it's an "actors showcase," because it's a showcase by actors. "Farmers market" is a market created by farmers.

Sometimes, you'll add an apostrophe if the descriptive word is already plural but doesn't end in "s."

Children's hospital

Men's room

Sources: The Associated Press, Spark Notes, Dictionary Society of North America, Lyberty.com, Merriam-Webster, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, TV.com, OMG Facts.

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ActiveStyle on 08/27/2018

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