My Old Friends, Collective Nouns

First Published April 19, 1981

I have been thinking of our old friends—the collective nouns—and trying to come up with a few that are original, though some of the old ones will never be topped.

One thinks with admiration of the genius who first called a group of lions a pride, or the equally talented person who first spoke of an exaltation of larks.

Nothing comes to my mediocre mind to match either of these, though I recall my father (who was also a writer), infuriated by some criticism of one of his works, grouping all critics together as “a twaddle.”

The collective noun is actually a double-purpose word. It not only puts like objects in a group, but it describes their essential characteristic and it is that latter function which gives the word its zest.

One thinks, for instance, of a convention of television newscasters.

“Group” will appeal not even to the dullest of minds. But how about “syrup”?

Will that serve? “A syrup of newscasters gathered last week in New York…” Not quite on the mark.

Would you settle for “chirrup”?

“A chirrup of newscasters gathered in New York last week…” No.

There is something missing, and the proper collective for these types, forming a mutual admiration society at each broadcast, awaits the inspiration of the man who exalted the larks and gave pride to the lions.

A “smirk of newscasters”? Well, you try it. I see I am going to have a hard time going to sleep tonight.

For a while I was pretty happy with the phrase “a confusion of computers,” until I received three times a bill from a credit company which I had already paid.

Now I prefer “carnage” as the collective, but once again the fit is not perfect and perhaps we do better with “a confusion of computers.”

With “a silence of books” I have no quarrel, for it is better than “clutter” or “stack,” which describes merely their physical aspect. But can we do more for elephants than call them herd? I lean myself to “a dignity of elephants”—which would not include a political convention where the appropriate word would be “babble.”

This has no association with the Tower of Babel but is rather derived from the “ba-ba” sounds, conveying no meaning, issued by babies.

Freeways have been with us now 40 years or more, at least in Los Angeles, and rarely come in crowds except in the very place they shouldn’t, that is to say, the center of a city. Here I can only think of them as a “frustration of freeways,” designed by a “collision of engineers.”

I have never been able to understand why a mass of ships is called a fleet, for there is nothing fleet about them, either at anchor or cutting their way through the seas. A “fleet of birds” might be appropriate, flight being now a little out-moded.

But I have looked the word up in the Oxford English Dictionary and find that I had the wrong meaning for it. In its original sense it meant a ship or by extension ships, and had nothing to do with speed. The fleet I was thinking of comes from quite a different root.

Still, since almost everyone thinks of fleet as having something to do with speed, perhaps another term is called for. But all I can come up with right now is “slosh”—“a slosh of ships.”

You may not agree with it but, if you have ever watched them in a shipping lane, you will immediately understand what I mean.

An “anxiety of authors” seems a natural and appropriate phrase, as does also a “sweat of patients”—in a doctor’s waiting room or that of a dentist. And would you be content with a “quibble of lawyers” and a “solemnity of judges”?

I promise I will not bring up the subject again—unless you yourself have some collective ideas.

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