"Origin (Taxonomy?) of terms" Topic
8 Posts
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| Terrement | 14 Dec 2007 7:46 a.m. PST |
I've always wondered who / how / why for some terms used to describe collections of animals. I understand herd of horses, herd of cows, flock of sheep and flock of birds, and can accept from common usage school of fish and gaggle of geese. But why a pride of lions? A murder of crows? An exaltation of doves, or any of the other strange terms? Just wondering… |
Dave Jackson  | 14 Dec 2007 8:04 a.m. PST |
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 John the OFM | 14 Dec 2007 8:04 a.m. PST |
Sheer poetic whimsy, in the stranger cases, like "exaltation of larks". In some, like "school of fish", bunches of fish act like a school class the way they turn ans swim together. In other cases, just think of the alleged 40 Eskimo words for "snow". To them, there is a NEED for the different words. The original herdsmen or flockists called them that because the word was sufficient. "Hey Ragnar, bring in the flock." Perhaps "flock of sheep was redundant? Perhaps "flock" meant "of sheep", and contained "of sheep" in its meaning. In the same way, "herd" did not need "of cattle" to modify the word. It already implied "of cattle". It is only later that we started to add "of sheep" or "of cattle" to words that defined a bunch of critters quite well by themselves. |
| the former aecurtis | 14 Dec 2007 8:15 a.m. PST |
"Flockist"? "Flocknician" these days, I would suspect. Allen |
| Jay Arnold | 14 Dec 2007 11:22 a.m. PST |
Study of the origin of words is etymology. |
| Devil Dice | 14 Dec 2007 12:14 p.m. PST |
OK I'm intrigued . What do you call a herd of Wargamers ? A Disagreement ? |
| Terrement | 14 Dec 2007 3:40 p.m. PST |
Jay, Thanks for the correction. Linnaean taxonomy is a method of classifying living things, originally devised by (and named for) Carl Linnaeus, although it has changed considerably since his time. Velbor, Your term is the best one I've heard – anyone else have a better idea? |
| Jeremy Sutcliffe | 01 Mar 2008 5:42 p.m. PST |
I've always liked "a sizzle of sausages" |
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