Cats don't just come in
clowders, they also come in
glarings, pounces and destructions (although the latter is specific to feral cats, it would seem - though any owner of a domestic cat knows that she -or he, or even it- can be a destruction single-handed, er.. hm.. single-pawed ?).
Collective nouns for animals in english are amazing to me.
In general I’d be hard pressed to tell a crow from a raven, a rook, a jackdaw or a chough.
I am just as unable to recognise un corbeau d’une corneille, d’un freux, d’un choucas ou d’un chocard (ou d’un crave - french has two different names for the two species of the genus Pyrrhocorax, in english both are choughs)
But to tell a
murder from a
unkindness, a
building (or a
parliament), a
train (that may be a
clattering), or a
chattering (also called a
clattering, a possible confusion in that case) is way beyond my ability.
SInce all these names are called "terms of venery", you english speaking people are really great hunters !
There are four terms for a collective of ducks, and three more for a collective of mallards (four if you count the two spellings
sute and
suit as separate rather than just variants of a single name), and none are common. But if I see a single mallard, I'd call it a duck !
There are also some paradoxes.
Grasshoppers come in
clouds, but locusts in
plagues.
Also, you can have a
sloth of bears, but not a
bear of sloths: there is no name for a group of sloths. It is true that sloth are not very social creatures.
EPS:
You should have posted your spoiler only in the Velvet Room, you lecher, you !
I was not able to see its content directly by clicking on the link as it appeared, it was blocked, but by pretending to quote your post, I was able to copy the name of original website and thus have access to it.
Some in-built protection of the Web realised it was not appropriate to the younger members of this forum !
Hey ! Now it works directly on your post, finding it once by an indirect way managed to release the block. My respect for the higher morality of the Web has decreased.