Group Names for Animals
And a few for bunches of humans
I wrote about collective terms for birds a couple of weeks ago. Today, I’ll discuss group names for animals.
These are mainly from The Book of St. Albans, published in 1486. Interestingly, the book, published for gentlemen, is attributed to a woman, Dame Juliana Berners. The credit at the end of the book reads, "Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke of hunting".
Spellcheck was obviously a future development in publishing.
A Shrewdness of Apes is one of my favorites. It rivals a Sleuth of Bears as a strange term for any group of critters. You can make a case that apes display shrewdness in their group interactions, but I can think of more descriptive names for a bunch of bears. That’s it, a Bunch of Bears.
Bees swarm so a Swarm of Bees makes sense, but an Obstinacy of Buffalos? Someone must have tried to herd some Great Plains bison or African water buffalos, but the critters had other ideas.
Visualizing a Parade of Elephants, a Tower of Giraffes, and a Business of Ferrets is easy, as is picturing a Bloat of Hippopotami and a Cackle of Hyenas.
We’re all familiar with a Pride of Lions, but I never heard of a Shadow of Jaguars or a Leap of Leopards. An Ambush of Tigers? A term based on a catastrophic experience, no doubt.
A Bask of Crocodiles can be pictured, especially from a dugout canoe floating down the Nile, and a Quiver of Cobras is easy to see. And we all know about a Pack of Wolves, but a Charm of Foxes sounds a bit fanciful for a predatory animal.
Underwater, we have a Pod of Whales, and, more interestingly, a Fever of Stingrays and a Smack of Jellyfish.
Of course, cats are independent house pets and have their own group terms. A Litter of Kittens contrasts with a Glaring of Cats or, less descriptively, a Clowder of Cats.
I had to look up “clowder” and found out it comes from an old term meaning a “clotted mass.” That would not be my group term for cats, but I didn’t write the book.
Wild Cats have an understandable group term – a Destruction of Wild Cats.
Let’s move on to names for groups of humans.
These are also from The Book of St. Albans.
A Congregation of People is a common term for nearly any group but usually reserved for a church gathering.
I’ve read of a School of Clerks in English literature, but a Goring of Butchers was new to me. Then there’s a Tabernacle of Bakers, a Feast of Brewers, and a Drunkenship of Cobblers.
Could Dame Juliana possibly have had an unpleasant experience with the local shoe repairman that she labeled the entire trade as inebriants? Is it for crooked heel repairs, perhaps? Misallied soles?
On the other hand, she obviously had a better relationship with her husband’s wardrobe suppliers, as Proud Showing of Tailors is an amicable term.
An Eloquence of Lawyers, a Discretion of Priests, and a Prudence of Vicars are all descriptive terms for the professions.
Those in power were known as a State of Princes and an Execution of Officers. However, those on the fringes of society were not treated as well, as in a Skulk of Thieves.
I’m perplexed by the group term of an Observation of Hermits. Are the hermits being observed, or are the hermits the observers?
The Book of St. Albans was written to educate the landed gentry of Medieval England, so the group names for birds, animals, and humans give us some insight into how the affluent society viewed the world around them.
What’s surprising is that we’ve kept many of the group names for over 500 years, many as serious labels, but most as items of quaint interest. A Drunkenship of Cobblers is long gone, but, as the owner (servant) of many cats through the years, I love a Glaring of Cats.
As a fun game, I thought about names for current societal groups, such as a Rumble of Gangsters or a Conspiracy of Congressmen.
A Clot of Hematologists, a Forest of Loggers, and a Bevy of Bankers come to mind.
If you (the reader) have any new ones, please post them in the comment section.
Didn't someone write a book called A Conspiracy of Dunces? Rather descriptive of a number of groups of people. I never took it seriously until I listened to someone's podcast where he listed the individual IQs of some of the leaders of the EU. He referred to them as mid-wits, quite appropriately I might add. Then I proudly thought of the gentlemen and ladies who have been running our federal government for the last half century of so. They couldn't possibly be mid-wits, could they?
I, too, love a Glaring of Cats primarily because I've known our cats to glare at us on occasion where their meals haven't been placed quickly enough on the floor for their liking. On another note, I've stayed in St. Albans for a work-related meeting. It's quite a nice small city northwest of London. Nice piece, Tom.