{"id":1925,"date":"2012-08-21T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/?p=1925"},"modified":"2014-10-02T02:00:15","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T06:00:15","slug":"crazy-collective-nouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/english\/crazy-collective-nouns\/","title":{"rendered":"Crazy Collective Nouns"},"content":{"rendered":"

A collective noun is the name of a collection of people, animals, or things that can be spoken about as a whole or group.\u00a0 One of the many oddities (and annoyances) in the English language is the number of different collective nouns that exist.\u00a0 Some of these collective nouns are likely to be familiar to you, for example: ‘group of people’, ‘group of ideas’, ‘group of children’ etc.\u00a0 The word “group” is probably the most common collective noun in English.\u00a0 But there are many, many more collective nouns in English and most of the other collective nouns are used specifically to describe one group of objects or animals.\u00a0 I will give a number of examples of collective nouns below for you can see just how varied these collective nouns can be.\u00a0 Before looking at these it is important to be clear that collective nouns are different from mass nouns.\u00a0 As a reminder, mass nouns (also called non-count or uncountable nouns) are nouns in which the object that is being talked about is treated as one undifferentiated unit, rather than a collection of individual units taken as a whole.\u00a0 For example rice is a mass noun.\u00a0 We always talk about rice as a whole (i.e. a bag of rice, a pound of rice, a bowl of rice) we never talk about rices<\/del> as individual units.\u00a0 Collective nouns are used to describe countable items (nouns that can be made plural).\u00a0 Collective nouns can be seen as individual units, multiple or plural units, and collective or group units.<\/p>\n

Here is an example of how to use a mass noun:<\/p>\n

lion\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 – \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0lions\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 pride of lions
\n(noun) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 – \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0(plural\u00a0 form)\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 – \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0(mass noun)
\none animal\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0multiple animals\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0a group of animals<\/p>\n

Now, here is a list of some common, uncommon, and funny collective nouns in English:<\/p>\n

Animal related:<\/strong>
\na flock of birds
\na litter of pups
\na prickle of porcupines
\na litter of cubs
\na pack of dogs
\na colony of beavers
\na gaggle of geese
\na family of otters
\na huddle of walruses
\na herd of deer
\na culture of bacteria
\na swarm of bees
\na bed of clams
\na school of cod
\na herd of dinosaurs
\na mess of iguanas
\na mob of wombats
\na pod of pelicans<\/p>\n

People related:<\/strong>
\na troop of boy scouts
\na team of athletes
\na panel of experts
\na crew of sailors
\na band of robbers
\na troupe of performers
\na crowd of onlookers
\na curse of painters<\/p>\n

‘Thing’ related:<\/strong>
\na fleet of cars
\na pair of shoes
\na fleet of ships
\nan anthology of stories<\/p>\n

In summary we use collective nouns to talk about nouns that come in groups.\u00a0 If you don’t know the specific collective noun name for a group of things you can always use the word “group” in front of the noun, i.e. ‘a group of cars’ is correct English, but ‘a fleet of cars’ is more<\/em> correct English.\u00a0 Here is a website that gives a more extensive list of collective nouns in English if you would like to learn more: http:\/\/users.tinyonline.co.uk\/gswithenbank\/collnoun.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A collective noun is the name of a collection of people, animals, or things that can be spoken about as a whole or group.\u00a0 One of the many oddities (and annoyances) in the English language is the number of different collective nouns that exist.\u00a0 Some of these collective nouns are likely to be familiar to…<\/p>\n

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