Variously idiosyncratic, intriguing and often unerringly apt in their descriptions of gatherings of birds, animals and people a damning of jurors, an incredulity of cuckolds — most of the collective ...

Collective nouns are an essential part of language. While we may not use them as often in our daily conversations, we did memorise some of them in school. From a pack of cards to a litter of puppies, ...

Join us as we continue the age-old search to name groups of things. WE ALL HAVE our favourites. A flush of fungi. A bask of crocodiles. A charm of finches. And a superfluity of nuns – well, maybe not ...

The couple is going to purchase the house? Or the couple are going to purchase the house? Even after all my years of editing, I can still get tripped up trying to make verbs agree with collective ...

The couple is going to purchase the house? Or the couple are going to purchase the house? Even after all my years of editing, I can still get tripped up trying to make verbs agree with collective ...

Collective nouns may seem like quirky ways to describe groups, but 500 years ago, they were your ticket to the in-crowd. Most collective nouns, or “terms of venery,” were coined during the 15th ...

What do you call a group of Daleks? Or Cylons? Or Firefly fans? It’s a crime there are no official collective nouns for them so we asked you to create some As any pub quizzer knows, there are some ...

A gaggle of geese, of course; but when they're flying in that dramatic V-shape, a skein of geese. And a shoal of herrings, but a school of whales. Or is it a pod? Hang on, isn't it a pod of ...

A pride of lions is child’s play. Pipe up with a parliament of owls, or a ostentation of peacocks and you might just impress your friends. But lay down an embarrassment of pandas or a charm of finches ...

It will be a shame to give up on collective nouns with plural verbs Last week’s little victory was confirming that the use of what we may call “singular their” in English goes back centuries.