I was applying barcodes to books today at work to keep myself busy between projects, and I came across this little gem, Schott's Original Miscellany. The first thing I opened up to was Nouns of Assemblage, which are my favorite kind of nouns. Here are some things I learned:
a malapertness of peddlers
a spring of teals (I don't even know what to picture in my mind with this. what are teals?)
a gang of elk
a murmuration of starlings
a suit of sails
a wilderness of monkeys (my favorite)
a clutch of eggs
a field of runners
a chattering of choughs (of what?)
a cete of badgers
a bench of bishops
a murder of crows
a barren of mules
a rag of colts
a walk of snipe (what is a snipe anyway? I thought they weren't real...)
an exaltation of larks
a muster of peacocks
a desert of lapwing
a drift of swine
a stud of mares (haha)
a parliament of rooks and owls :)
a glozing of taverners
a covey of ptarmigan (of what??)
a business of ferrets
a drunkship of cobblers (I wonder who picked this noun)
a nye of pheasants
a fall of woodcock
a sege of herons
a herd of curlews
I will be purchasing this book posthaste and sharing its wonders with all those who don't care. I can't wait.
Wow. That is really awesome.
ReplyDeleteNow clearly I need to learn cobblery to give these cobblers a new reputation!
Similar. From this book I learned about analyzing handwriting and reading palms, and it has a list of common foreign phrases used by Anglophones.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun book. In case you're curious, I happen to know what a snipe really is and also a ptarmigan. I'll give you a hint...they're close relatives of some of your favorite animals:)
ReplyDelete