His coinages include 'a Kerouac of deadbeats' and a 'chatter of finks.' Those probably aren't in any original 16th century texts.Ģ. You should also know that Lipton clearly is inventing language just for the fun of it. (Also, it is not to be confused with An Exaltation of Larks, #1 in the Venery Series, by Suanne Laqueur, a novel of family, terrorism, and romance.) You now know that 'venereal' is the adjectival form of 'venery,' and not a reference to an STD, but you can also see why the publishers might want to change the title in subsequent editions. Interestingly, the original subtitle of Lipton's book was An Exaltation of Larks or, The Venereal Game. That is, it was a very conscious attempt to return terms like 'murder of crows' to common usage and make English more colorful.

Albans) and dug up terms for collections of birds and beasts and types of men that he wants to restore into English usage. In this book, Lipton goes back to fifteenth century manuscripts (such as St. Several of these sources point to the book, An Exaltation of Larks, by James Lipton ( 1968) as causing the revival of many of these terms of venery. Albans (1486)īut few of these terms were in common use after the 16th century. And like most jargon, they were ripe for parody.' As has been noted, ' Terms of venery were the linguistic equivalent of silly hats: colorful, affected, fashionable, and very popular. The popularity of the terms in the modern period has resulted in the addition of numerous lighthearted, humorous or facetious collective nouns.

There's even a reference to several books, most notably the Book of Saint Albans (1486) which lists 164 terms of venery, many of which are clearly humorous, such as 'a Doctryne of doctoris,' 'a Sentence of Juges,' 'a Fightyng of beggers,' 'a Melody of harpers,' 'a Disworship of Scottis,' and so forth.Īpparently, the Book of Saint Albans became very popular during the 16th century and had the effect of perpetuating many of these terms as part of the Standard English lexicon even if they were originally meant to be humorous and have long ceased to have any practical application. In the course of the 14th century, it became a courtly fashion to extend the vocabulary, and by the 15th century, the tendency had reached exaggerated and even satirical proportions.' The elements can be shown to have already been part of French and English hunting terminology by the beginning of the 14th century. It was marked by an extensive proliferation of specialist vocabulary, applying different names to the same feature in different animals. The fashion of a consciously developed hunting language came to England from France. 'The tradition of using 'terms of venery' or 'nouns of assembly,' collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals, stems from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages. Continuing farther down the page of Collective Nouns, we read: But let's drill down a bit on that term ('venery'). I'd heard that term before, but couldn't recall it without looking at that page. Other examples come from popular culture such as a group of owls, which is called a 'parliament.' For example, 'pride' as a term of venery always refers to lions, never to dogs or cows.

Some collective nouns are specific to one kind of thing, especially terms of venery, which identify groups of specific animals. Leads to a bunch of great resources, including the inevitable Wikipedia page, List of Animal Names.īut if you look at the Wikipedia page for Collective Nouns, you'll learn that This also includes collective nouns for animals: pod, swarm, flock, etc.īut for this Challenge, what's the specific term for the collective noun of particular kinds of animals? (Which, btw, is never used with the indefinite article! You wouldn't say 'a luggage' or 'a happiness.')īy contrast, the term for a collection of arbitrary things is a collective noun, words like crew, team, committee, or pack.

If you've got a collection of things that are not meaningfully divisible, such as luggage or happiness, then that's a mass noun. In this case I happen to know the term for a collection of somethings. What are these kinds of terms called? (That is, what do you call words that denote a specific name for a group of a particular kind of animal, such as as 'pack' of wolves.) What's THAT called? (Once you know this term, perhaps it will be simpler to figure this out. Such questions the enquiring mind wants to know! So, today, a fairly straightforward couple of questions that will open your mind to running down the true origins of words.ġ. But are they, really? Or are they simply made up by someone as a kind of joke? they're all supposed to be names for groups of animals.

Flocks of animals