Hello Splodgekins!
I have spent all of today indoors. I have been levelling up my Pokemon and choosing what I need to pack before I move, but without actually packing anything; which can be rather vexing.
Whilst sitting in my disillusionment, I looked out of the window and this is what I saw-
Its a little difficult to tell, but that is a family of five goldfinches. This got be thinking that I had never seen such a large number of goldfinches in the same place. Which got me thinking "Didn't I used to know the collective nouns for a lot of things?" Which is true, but I could only remember the ones that sounded the funniest, But here are a collection of the funniest ones I could find on wikipedia and a short description of the entertaining picture they create in my mind
- a bellowing of bullfinches- A number of bullfinches yelling at each other a la Phil Mitchell (he always goes as read as a bullfinch chest when he's yelling) all shouting about who's turn it is to clean out the seeds from the feeder
- a clattering of starlings - a great big cloud of starlings that separates into two, flying away from each other, then turning round and flying back into each other. The sounds of plane engines. And then the sound of breaking glass as they hit each other. A little like a scene from Catch The Pidgeon.
- a murder of crows- this picture Which is slightly ironic considering that the birds in this picture are not crows, but ravens. You can tell by the beak shape and by the fact that they have rings on their feet. Nobody bothers ringing crows.
- an unkindness of ravens- an ornithological school yard in which the bully birds, obviously ravens, stand at the doors to the toilets forcing little birds (bluetits or chaffinches for example) to give up their break time birdseed in order to be allowed in. How unkind!
- a caravan of camels - two things; either a caravan in the shape of a camel (similar to the catbus of My Neighboor Totoro fame) or a bunch of camels crammed into a small caravan "enjoying" a family holiday on the north-eastern coast of Scotland in borderline hurricane weather.
- a chattering of choughs- Choughs. Lots of them. All on the phone. All to each other. All talking so fast that no outsider could possibly tell what's going on.
- an intrusion of cockroaches - A James Bond style tense situation, where Bond is breaking into some top secret building to get information. The bad guy is watching on all his monitors. Back in the corridor, Bond can see the lasers at angles all across the corridor. Thinking "aww shit, this is gonna be well tricky", a cockroach walks through one of the lasers triggering flashing lights and sirens and calls of "intruder alert. intruder alert" in that way that does not require exclamation marks, but still is very alarming if you're trying to avoid detection.
- a piteousness of doves - a lot of doves sitting around discussing their love lives, dabbing at their eyes with hankies.
- a waddling of ducks- Ducks, doing what they do best. Waddling along, shaking those tail feathers!
- a tower of giraffes - Giraffes, at least four or five, all looming over me, towering in their stature compared to mine. Its OK though, they know we're friends because I have all those t-shirts that feature giraffes.
- a kettle of hawks- four or five Harris hawks stuffed into a kettle. Made more entertaining by the fact that in my family, we sometimes say "Put the kestrel on" meaning the kettle. And for those of you who don't know the kestrel is a type of hawk.
- a bloat of hippopotamuses- hippos lying around on the banks of a river going "oh my god, Shirley, I couldn't eat another thing. I'm so bloated and uncomfortable" And then launching into one of those activia probiotic yogurt adverts or a senekot relief tablet ad.
- a deceit of lapwings - Shady lapwings wearing long coats and fedoras on some river delta, walking around in that weird way they do when they want to go a long way, but don't want to fly (think of the way seagulls do) and then offering other coastal birds dodgy drugs or street magic cons
- a crash of rhinos - similar to a clattering of starlings, but their are car horns instead of the sounds of plane engines. Also reminds me of the video "How Animals Eat Their Food"
- an escargatoire of snails - Lots of snails lined up outside the doors to an establishment called "the escargatoiré" - but when they go behind the doors, they just fall in a big pot of water. The pot is then carried out to some hungry French people.
- a dazzle of zebras - four or five zebras all wearing rayban sun glasses with neon-coloured frames, saying things like "Far out!" and "Radical!" to each other.
...oh yeah, and I looked up goldfinches too- its a charm of goldfinches. A charm.
Who on earth made these the official collective nouns?? I mean... sometimes they're useful, but that's usually to help distinguish a type of species, like a herd is always going to be cows, or something bovine, unless referring to a specific type of herd like elephants. And then a flock is nearly always going to be birds, unless referring to sheep- again, context based. And a swarm will nearly always be insects! But why WHY did someone feel the need to create the collective noun "a dazzle of zebras" ?! Sure it creates some entertainment for me, but why a dazzle? Why not a bar code??
Know any more entertaining collective nouns? Let me know in the comments!
Today, this is me after having had a nice, relaxing bath:
This is unusual, because at my house nobody EVER uses the bath, we're all about showers!
See you tomorrow!
-Rosa
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